


Spinning

by getyouwhateverthepayne



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Humor, Blow Jobs, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Oral Sex, also im stuck on sad reflective stuff please save me, basically I'm a gross human being, bye, except it hasnt been 2 months its been like almost a year, idk - Freeform, idk man, of constipated shit writing, oh also more tags ok, the thing about the writers block is autobiographical lmao, well i hope it's humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-07 19:21:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 36,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3180197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getyouwhateverthepayne/pseuds/getyouwhateverthepayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>My therapist told me to start a journal. Congratulations! You messed me up so bad I actually need a therapist now.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Or the one where Zayn leaves and Harry's not really over it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I STILL HAVE WRITERS BLOCK I CANT GET MYSELF TO WRITE ANYTHING LONG PLEAS EHE LP ME
> 
> ALSO PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK 
> 
> thank u
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at [donechapel](http://www.donechapel.tumblr.com) (my main blog) or at [getyouwhateverthepayne](http://www.getyouwhateverthepayne.tumblr.com) :-)
> 
> this might be the start to a series of journal entries...possibly some entries by zayn....possibly a present day plot going on alongside all the reminiscing....possibly a reconciliation or at least a meeting or a running into each other thing...i'm not quite sure
> 
> it might also be nothing bc of this duMB WRITERs bLOCK
> 
> anyway enjoy!
> 
> **EDIT (SEPT 24, 2015): THIS WORK HAS NOT BEEN LEFT FOR DEAD. IT IS STILL ON HIATUS. I SWEAR I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN ABOUT IT OK I THINK ABOUT IT EVERY DAY. APPARENTLY WRITERS BLOCK IS A CHRONIC ILLNESS**

My therapist told me to start a journal. Congratulations! You messed me up so bad I actually need a therapist now.

January 16, 2015  
1:03 a.m.

I wonder if you think of me.

I think of you. That’s fucking cliche. This entire thing is fucking cliche. Journals and sadness and shit. Shitting is also fucking cliche, as is fucking. They’ve been going on since the dawn of existence. The human experience is really one giant fucking cliche, too. Just a repetition of everyone and everything else that came before you. You told me that, the fourth time we ever talked, in that Criticism and Theory class I took by mistake. You were the reason I didn’t transfer to the Philosophy class I thought I was taking. Did you know that?

Because you were gorgeous, remember that? I told you that the seventh time I took you out to dinner. That I had walked in and the hazel in your eyes literally stumped me. I’d never found anyone else’s eyes that interesting. I thought getting your breath literally taken away by someone’s jawline was reserved for poorly written fan-fiction, the kind I read when I was fifteen, but there you were, sitting at the large discussion table with your eyes focused on your laptop, typing something, the screen’s glow illuminating your face and glinting in your dark hair, and there I was, late, a mess, my coffee spilling out of my thermos, literally gaping at how beautiful you were.

I don’t think you really bothered to look up.

But you told me that thing about the human experience the fourth time we talked. So, you know, maybe another pair of two people had a similar meeting like that before us. I probably wasn’t the first person to be stumped by hazel eyes. I probably wasn’t even the first person to be stumped by your hazel eyes.

Your beauty’s a fucking cruel curse, I just thought you should know.

Anyway, I believe it now.

That these words have been said. The ones I’m saying now. Maybe not in this order, but the basic arrangement has been done before. I’m only feeling right now what other people have felt before. What you did to me isn’t new, really.

And I have nothing new to say about it that hasn’t already been said. You’ve probably read enough authors that if you ever read this, you could tell me who’s said it better, and who’s said it with more emotional impact, and who’s said it with more concision. That knowledge is probably why I’ve gotten writer’s block for so long. I still have it. I’ll keep talking though.

Maybe because I think you deserve it, or maybe it’s in spite of the fact that you don’t deserve it, but I’ll keep talking. You’re getting these words. I don’t know how. Maybe I’ll email them to you, old-fashioned, or find your new address and print this shit out and lick the envelope shut myself.

I know I will probably never send this to you.

But I thought you should know your room’s still the way it was when you left. I know you were always fascinated and deeply saddened by things that look like they were left hanging in midair — abandoned homes, unfinished sidewalks, smudged papers in trashbins— things that look like they’re about to be picked up again but have never actually been touched for decades until someone else finds them, after they’ve already been left to continue their existence in a world in which the original owner is probably long gone and dead and under the ground — I know you never thought you would leave that behind, that gentle breeze of air of someone walking out of a room, letting the dust settle someplace a little new. Abandoning it all in your wake.

But that’s what you did.

Your bed is still unmade. Your notes are still on your desk. The ones I guess you didn’t think were important enough to take with you. That spindly little chair is still pulled out like you’re about to come back from the kitchen with your coffee and sit back down and start writing again.

The door to your closet is open, just a little. Footprints still press down the carpet. Most of your clothes are still in there, which I really don’t understand. Like, what the fuck, seriously. I know you like to be writerly and deep and life is meaningless and dramatic exits and all that crap and I know I used to be like that too, but you’d think clothes are a little bit of a necessity, right? Just come back and get them, please.

I don’t want to see your Doc Martens empty and waiting by the door for another day. Didn’t you fucking like those shoes? Why the fuck didn’t you take them with you? What the fuck?

Everything you left in your room is so fucking still. I’m looking at a moment that’s been stuck for two months, unmoved. It’s like looking at a gash, to be honest. A real ugly, real unwanted gash. On like an important extremity too, so I can’t even forget about it. It’s, like, a giant stab wound on my thigh or something. I’ll survive, because no one dies from a fucking gash in their thigh, obviously, but it’s also really unnecessarily painful every time I think I’m taking a step forward. So thanks for that. I’ve always wanted an unhealing gash. Maybe it adds to my credibility as a writer. I’ll tell people it’s something cooler, like a shark bite.

So I figure the best thing is if I don’t go in there. Dust is gathering on your typewriter. That one we got together in the antique shop that you swore you would use and never did. I paid for that, remember? Is that why you left it here? Penance? 

Guilt? Or as an intentionally cruel reminder of how much time and money I wasted on you? I don’t even like that fucking thing.

And Jesus. That used to be our room, not your room. You’ve claimed it in your absence. You have that ability. Or maybe you don’t, and I just think you do, and therefore I give you that ability.

That’s probably it.

I wonder if you think of me. 

I wonder if he ever says my name.

Because I’m still here. I still live here, in the place that we shared for two years.

That’s another life for you now but I’m still fucking living it and I want out. I’m living a ghost. I’m living an echo. Everything feels hollow.

The television shows we used to watch together just bounce off the walls now and hit back and forth inside my head until it makes my mind spin.

I can’t sleep and your bed is still unmade, the one we used to sleep in together but now my bed’s the couch because I can’t go in there anymore, and I can’t sleep. My eyes don’t close enough, which fucking sucks, because I don’t want to see this apartment when you’re not here.

But you want to know why I can’t leave, besides the fact that the lease isn't up for another damning six months? Because every single fucking day I sit there, at our kitchen table, with two cups of coffee, and wait for you to jostle that doorknob and walk in, fresh and rosy-cheeked from your brisk walk to the pastry shop down the street, like you said you would.

You never do. I don’t think you ever will.

No, Zayn, I know you never will.

But then I walk past that stab wound again and I wonder if you ever think of me.

Because I think of you.


	2. Chapter 2

I got a camera yesterday.

January 18, 2015  
8:33 a.m.

It’s beautiful. Like, it might as well be the child I never had. Or the guinea pig you never let me adopt because they’re rodents, gross! You can’t have that around the apartment! What if it gets in your oil paints! In your expensive pen drawer! In the fridge! Dear god! The horror!

You never liked them, I don’t think. Cameras or guinea pigs. 

Well, Zayn. Guess what? I wear one around my neck now. 

Not guinea pigs.

That’s a little sadist.

Although I wouldn’t expect anything different from you, to be honest, you know? You were probably praying to Satan all those times you were in our bathroom fixing your hair even though your hair was honestly always fine.

Are you a sadist, Zayn? Do you happen to be wearing a guinea pig around your neck right now? Can I take just a few minutes out of your day to talk about our lord and savior Jesus Christ? It’s okay if you are. I’m an accepting person, we both know that. But, you know, I’ve had a lot of free time lately and I happen to have read up on the major rules of Satanism and I’m going to have to be honest here. They’re not half as bad as what you think. Because rules, at least, have logic. No matter what kind they are. No matter who wrote them. There’s a beautiful simplicity to rules.

I wish you’d follow some of the basic ones. You know, like kindness. Or fidelity.

I may be pulling at straws here but I really don’t know what else it could have been. You never did say. Just left. No note, car gone….

You make me feel like Mrs. Weasley, you know? Sometimes. You loved that scene. The wrongly angered mother with really nothing but good intentions. 

I should just accept this. 

This hollow fucking empty echo that I live in when you’re gone, when you ride off to go save Harry Potter but never come back. Because that’s what adults do, right? They manage things, or they at least look like it. They don’t have to keep journals to keep their thoughts straight. No. Because that’s what you said to me five months ago when I suggested the same thing to you after your aunt died. I’m sorry about that, by the way; I really did deserve the four day silent treatment you gave me for trying to help you. 

The grieving process is a fragile thing, I suppose.

I should know. I think it’s making me go a little insane. Like the real kind.

My therapist says you really screwed me up. 

Well, not in so many words. She says I fear abandonment now. I’ve become really defensive, she says. I’ve put up walls. My thoughts get all mixed up and I can’t follow them. Like I’m stuck in mud with my engine going at full speed but I don’t go anywhere. She says I need to stop pushing down on the accelerator so hard because the only way I’ll move is if someone helps push the car out of the mess that you drove it into. 

But it only works if I push with them, too. That’s what she says. While I lay on her couch with my hands folded across my chest and my eyes trained on her cheap fake woodgrain ceiling like the fucking mental patient that I am. The sound of traffic below is always there in the background in her office. It taunts me. I can hear it outside our apartment right now; it follows me everywhere. 

I need to get out.

Another fucking cliche. I need to get out. Maybe I need a nice small town southern girl to remind me of the important things in life. Like family, a good meal, real music — the kind with banjoes and shit that’s always about losing your car or your girl or your way in life or your seat at the bar. Stereotypical white people shit that used to hurt your ears like spinning chainsaws whenever I felt like putting it on.

I need to get out.

But remember when I wasn’t like this? When my thoughts weren’t so staccato? I read through my journal entries sometimes and it actually bothers me how choppy all of my sentences are. They’re so abrupt. Short, like I’m punching my words out. 

I used to be able to say whatever was on my mind quickly, easily, naturally. You should remember that, because I think that’s what made you fall in love with me. I told you everything — not because I needed to, but because I just wanted to. You’d listen. You’d listen so intently that sometimes it made me feel more than human. I felt so important, so much so that sometimes I couldn’t even stop, and I’d go on talking for days, spouting random facts and trivial information until you’d finally tell me to shush and smile sleepily because it was late and you had class the next day. 

You made me feel more than human. I used to think we could fly.

Our twin extra long bed was always too small for us. Our legs intertwined and your breath would always touch my shoulder and there was this intense quiet that stretched for hours until we fell asleep to the sound of each other’s breathing because your air conditioner never worked right. I never thought I knew anyone more than I knew you then. 

You were so pretty when you were about to fall asleep. I could watch your eyelashes dust across your cheeks like the gentlest flush of fog, of air. I could watch you for years. I’d planned on that.

Now you’re gone. You went off to save Harry Potter and you never came home. Didn’t leave a note.

I could have really used that note.

And apparently now I’ve closed in on myself. Apparently I’m curling in on myself and hardening and becoming more brittle with every day that I don’t open up to someone. I’ve started to grow a shell to shield myself from harmful things, some miraculous maladaptation that’s doing more harm than good, ironically enough. Because now I actually need someone to talk to, instead of just wanting it. But now I can’t.

Hence the journal. This stupid fucking illogically-ordered and crappy stream of consciousness journal. And hence the camera, maybe. It’s something to create a dialogue between myself and the things around me. That’s what she says, at least.

She says a lot of things that are probably bullshit for someone who’s supposed to just listen to you. I don’t care. Because sometimes her voice is low and soft like yours and I like it. 

You asshole.

So I went to Central Park this morning. Honestly, I walked all the way there. I set my alarm — would you look at that, maybe in your absence I’m less afraid of mornings! — and I woke up before the sun was up. I took pictures of the city slowly shaking off the dawn. Have you ever noticed how pink the sky is, how dusty, at 5:39 in the morning? Probably not.

Because you always stayed inside. 

And I always stayed with you.

It’s so hard to write this. I don’t even fucking know what I’m saying.

There’s this fog around me I can’t shake off. Not even the clarity of the camera shutter really does anything to clear it.

Zayn.

I just want to hear you breathe my name again. I just want you to come home.

Fuck you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!
> 
> this prob sucks because this is the first work that's getting me out of my writers block so i apologize
> 
> idek if im going to continue this but i want to but maybe also the first journal entry was the best and now im ruining it i do not know jesus christ


	3. Chapter 3

The photographs sucked, but I don’t really care.

January 19, 2015  
10:09 p.m.

It’s Monday. Usually I find myself walking to that Italian place you liked on Mondays. The one with the margarita pizzas that inexplicably always had fig and duck on them no matter what kind you ordered. I usually end up there or on the other side of the street from it without even realizing, just a mindless re-tracing of steps until I finally pop back to clarity, staring at its hand-painted sign, still in my work clothes. It’s a scene in a bad made-for-television movie, basically. I don’t know how I got this bad. Jesus Christ. All I know is that it’s because we went there on a Monday once. 

My mind keeps getting stuck on random memories. Because I don’t know if you still go there now. You probably don’t. I realize that. It’s not like I do this to run into you. I don’t even know where you live. Or where his apartment is.

Upper east side, maybe? Is he fucking rich, Zayn? Great at picking stocks and fucking you hard enough to forget me?

Or does he even live in the city? Are you in Chicago now, Los Angeles? Or maybe you’ve slowed down a little. Maybe a vanilla suburb in a vanilla town even though you swore you’d never live a Levittown life. Maybe he has the same impact on you as you had on me. Because I don’t know how I ended up in the city when I’d always wanted a farm. I think it’s because I’d follow you anywhere.

Or maybe it’s because I’m too young for a farm. 

Maybe I need to be old and wrinkled and balding and with a good amount of heart breaks and other various life experiences under my belt before a farmhouse can be an appropriate choice of real estate. Maybe you’re just the first break in a long line of ones to come. Congratulations on that honorary place. But maybe with enough heartbreaks the horses will be able to sense my sadness like dogs can and run away because they’d know I’d be too messed up to remember to feed myself, let alone them.

Sometimes I get your mail. 

They haven’t gotten the notification of a change in address yet. It sucks, every single time. It hurts. There’s a pull in my chest and a tensing in my muscles every time I see your name. Bland, unemotional, typed on an envelope. Reducing you down to just another person who gets mail. I can’t stand that.

And I want to send it on but I can’t, and I want to stamp myself up and send myself on with them but I can’t, and then I want to throw them in a fire but we don’t even have a fireplace because all the apartments with working fireplaces in New York City are too expensive and we mutually agreed that we’d never need one, anyway.

I need one now. I can’t wait until the lease is up on this place.

I can feel the ground shifting under my feet. I didn’t go to that restaurant today, even though it’s a Monday. That typewriter of yours should have been symbolically thrown in the trash, probably burned for good measure while I laughed maniacally in the corner and the glowing orange light of the flames caressed and warmed my insanity-ridden face, but I needed the money so I pawned it. Anyway, it’s gone. I’m getting rid of everything that reminds me of you. Slowly.

Or at least I’m trying.

I cried for two hours after I gave that fucking thing away. Can you believe that? You probably can because I’m a sensitive soul, right? You said that the first time we got drunk together.

And now I’m fucking crying over a typewriter from 1946, so I guess you were right. 

You were always right. 

They weren’t pretty, either, the tears. They were fucking ugly. I don’t get how people can cry prettily. Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones, Zayn, who can cry prettily, but I wouldn’t know because I’ve never seen you cry, not even when your aunt died. That should have been unnerving, a warning, but it was you, so it wasn’t.

But my face went all red and blotchy and the tears were fat and wet like the ones pouring outside right now and there was so much pressure in my head that it felt like my temples were splitting open, like I’d been getting too drunk on something addicting and I was finally either going through aching withdrawal or an excruciatingly painful adverse reaction to an overdose. 

Probably a mix of both. An impossibility. A defiance of the laws of physics or medicine or science, that’s what you can do to me.

I need to go on a drive. Even if I can’t get that metaphorical engine to start up, I can get a real one to. I know enough about cars to be able to press start and go. I really need that, I think.

You could come with me, you know. If you want. The door’s unlocked.

That’s fucking unsafe, probably, so I don’t do it every night, but sometimes if I’m feeling desperate enough I won’t flip the lock. Russian roulette, I guess, with every person who walks by our open door. 

I’m hoping for the bullet.

Just come back, Zayn. We can leave together.

Let the rain hit the windshield like static and drive, drive, drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne :-) i think the next chapter might be zayn and the start of a real present day storyline idk


	4. Chapter 4

_**Zayn** _

I saw you today. I see you most days, actually.

January 20, 2015  
2:46 p.m.

I’m sorry. I think if I could go up and talk to you that’s what I would say.

That I’m a fuck up. That there’s no excuse. There really isn’t.

I’m not trying to play some mind game where I own up to my mistakes and am then absolved of all sin and you become the bad one if you’re still mad at me. Because I would have done that before — I used to do that before — and you would be right in assuming that of me, but I can’t anymore.

Games and shit like that — I can’t do it anymore.

It’s done.

And it’s done with him, too. I know I’m making this sound like I’ve had some huge soulful revelation, but in reality I’ve just been dumped. That’s all it took for me to grow up, I guess. And it sucks. But not as much as it did when I left you, even though I’d thought that pain was worth it. It wasn’t.

So I guess that’s what made me realize.

Damn it. I sound like a sniveling worthless little ex crawling on the ground for your forgiveness, but maybe that’s because I am. You’re not perfect and I’m not perfect but I’m begging for your forgiveness because I was at my best when I was with you. I’d know you’d hate it if I said that to your face.

I know what you were probably thinking when I just left like that, because I know how your mind works.

You’re smart enough — smarter than I am, probably — to put the pieces together, one of them being what a shitty person I am in general and how easily I flit between different people and favorite restaurants and writing styles in my search to be the ultimate person, the perfect person that I’ll never be, so I’m assuming that you assumed what happened. You assumed correctly.

I should have known, you know? He was too perfect. Too nice, too open-arms-come-into-my-life-and-home personality, and I should have known. That it would go wrong really, really quickly. Like a jenga game, except the base only had one piece and I was so high with infatuation that I didn’t see it. And when I landed with him, the vibrations of it made it all tumble. With you it wasn’t like that. Until I took out a base piece myself and watched it all fall apart, guiltless, telling myself you had led me to it. Somehow.

That’s a sucky analogy but I can’t come up with anything better. Maybe he sucked the life out of me or something deep like that. No inspiration anymore. He was a blackhole that I put everything into and got nothing from in return. You wouldn’t have liked him from the minute you met him. You would have been able to see that.

But I was annoyed at you because of some fucking reason that isn’t important enough now to even bother putting down in writing, so I was looking for something to get back at you with. I didn’t expect him to be so cutting in the end. I didn’t expect him to do that.

I think that’s what I’d say to you if I could just fucking gather up the courage to talk to you before you dip down from sight into the subway station every morning.

How is that, by the way, the internship? You got the position the night before I left, I think. They called you while you were taking a shit and I picked it up and gave it to you and I’d never seen you so happy, with your pants down around your ankles and your flip flops on because you never liked going into bathrooms barefoot.

But I was thinking about him, so I didn’t even talk to you about it afterwards. I just went to sleep in our bed while you went and watched television in the other room to wind down.

I think you knew I’d leave before I did.

Not consciously. But I saw you preparing.

You’d sleep in our room a little less. You’d tell me it’s just because you were passing out on the couch binge watching Luther or exhausted from your shifts at that fair trade store, but I could tell.

You’d stop tidying up after me. I knew I shouldn’t have expected that or liked you doing that because it’s 2015 and all but I did, every time you picked up my Doc Martens from the room and took them into our closet. It was so fucking domestic, and I loved it. It made my heart swell to the point of bursting every time I came home and I noticed dust gone from certain things when I was sure there was dust when I left that morning. I fucking loved waking up to my shoes in the closet. And then one day you just stopped doing that.

It made me feel so fucking sad for some reason. I don’t know why. That’s why I left them there by the door. Sorry. I’m a fucking spoiled brat and I didn’t want to look at them.

Also.

Well.

He said he didn’t like them. That’s also why I left my clothes. I left everything behind. I know. What the fuck, right?

But he’s gone now, and I don’t deserve you, and I hate how fucking cliche that sounds and I hate how I know that you hate cliches and that’s the reason that I also hate cliches now, but it’s true.

I’m not good enough for you. That is also cliche. You make me think about cliches daily. I hear your voice in my head. You’d tell me to shut up if you were reading this over my shoulder. That it’s not romantic to criticize myself just to win you back, that that’s just in the books I read. That it’s a backwards logic.

But I’m not really doing that, because you’ll never read this. So.

This writing is full of cliches because I’m being too safe, I know. Because I feel like I have to watch my steps after what a fuck up I became, like I don’t deserve to even get the chance to write about my thoughts and shit. That it’s a therapeutic process that’s above me now. And every time I start I just feel guilty, too guilty to write honestly and then I get stuck with the cliches. Like I’m walking a well-traveled path of overused tropes, overgrowing with vines of stereotypical proclamations of love and bumpy with self-doubt. But I’m afraid to stray. There are monsters lurking in the darker edges, ones with glinting eyes of envy and suppressed anger and absolute truth and I’m afraid of them, afraid of the path, and I was the one who started walking this way in the first place.

The only light at the end that I see is you.

And there’s another fucking overgrown vine right there, blocking my way.

I need to do something about it. Find a huge machete and cut it all down. Get a bulldozer and knock down the rotting trees and start over. Clear the way for sunlight. Expose those lurking monsters and see them for what they are, let the light hit them and show their real shape, and then face them head on. That’s what I need to do.

But I don’t know where you can find a machete in New York.

Anyway, tomorrow is going to be Wednesday. We met on a Wednesday, remember? You walked in that discussion room and you were so ridiculous and pretty I couldn’t look at you. I literally tried to disappear within myself so you wouldn’t look at me, either. I wish that it had worked. Then I wouldn’t have messed you up like this.

I wouldn’t have been your blackhole, because I know now how much that takes the breath from you.

Except it’s egotistical to think that you even loved me enough for me to have that kind of impact. Maybe you have a perfectly good amount of breath left in you. Maybe you’re fine right now, and I’m the mess, stuck on the path, afraid. Maybe you are fine alone, or with someone, or whatever your situation is now. You can just be my untouched light at the end, inescapable but too far away, across an uncrossable lake or something like I’m a fucking watered down version of Gatsby and you’re my Daisy. Except Daisy and Tom were horrendous racists, so that’s not the best comparison probably. You’re not Daisy. You’re better.

My mind goes in circles like this every night, every day. I’m twisting and spiraling and spinning out of control, I think, smaller and smaller until maybe, like some good stroke of karma, I really do compact and disappear within myself. Gone. Done with.

That would be nice.

But I think it’s fitting that we meet again on a Wednesday. That’s what I’ve been thinking about. Maybe I’ll ask you about that camera I saw you wear yesterday. Or is that fucking terrifyingly creepy? Probably.

It’s weird how you can fuck someone so intimately for two years straight and share clothes and shampoo and thoughts and horrible secrets and family tragedies and the same apartment and then be afraid to go up to them on the street two months later.

I know it’s not as simple as that. I know that’s my fault, but that’s obvious and doesn’t even need saying and you would roll your eyes if I ever said that out loud. Maybe that’s why I don’t go up and say I’m sorry. I’m afraid more than anything of dismissal. I can take anger or sadness or happiness but if you’re indifferent, maybe that’s the final straw. Maybe that’s when I’ll finally disappear. I’m good at that, anyway.

I know you don’t want to see me again.

But it’s a Wednesday tomorrow. And I’m too fucking cliche to not take a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne! the next chapter is a break from the journal entries i think :]


	5. Chapter 5

Oh no.

January 21, 2015  
10:58 a.m.

“Harry?”

I almost keep going. There’s a mess of sounds around us right now, cars and people talking and rushing footsteps and that saxophone player on the corner, so I could easily have said I missed it, mistaken it. I should pretend like I didn’t hear. My therapist would be happy if I told her I did that.

My foot wants to keep going to the next step.

Gravity is pulling me down. Don’t fight gravity. You’ll never win. Let gravity take you down the steps, where you should be going. Don’t do this.

Don’t do this.

I stop. I pull my foot back up a step. My entire body and mind are screaming no. And then I turn around.

Of course you’re there. Standing with your hands in your pockets like it’s so casual. Oh, hey, hi, how are you, how’ve you been? Been good? How’s the apartment without me in it? Mind if I interrupt your life like nothing happened?

I can’t breathe. My chest is concave. Everything narrows and all I see are those eyes, your eyes, those damning hazel eyes. Your beauty’s a fucking cruel curse, I told you.

You’re so beautiful.

“How’ve you been?” That’s what you say. My eyes want to bulge out. I want to wrap my fingers around your neck and squeeze until your beautiful hazel eyes pop out, too. How have I been? I’ll show you how I’ve been.

I’m contemplating this in excruciating detail when I hear myself responding, “Good. I’m good.”

There’s a beat of awkwardness, of silence, like this six seconds hasn’t been already painful for the both of us. You’re wearing new shoes, nice ones, suede. I never thought I’d see you dead in those. What did he do to you? Why are you here? How did you find me? You’re supposed to be in a vanilla Levittown suburb in a nondescript town that only exists in my imagination. None of this is making sense. I can’t breathe. You’re so real. Right there. I can see the wrinkles in your red sweater.

“That’s good, I’m um. I’m glad to see you, Harry.”

“Yeah, Zayn.”

Autopilot, that’s what this feels like. I don’t know what I’m saying. And you don’t like small talk, so you don’t know what you’re saying either. My hands are shaking and I’m losing my grip on my briefcase. I can’t believe I carry a briefcase now. I can’t believe you are seeing me carrying a briefcase. My mind is numb.

“Harry?”

“Yeah, Zayn?”

The city is loud in between us, a barrier.

“Do you want to maybe, can I — can I see you sometime? For coffee, maybe?”

I watch your features contort into their familiar scrunch, the one you get when you’re regretting what you’ve just said.

Well. Seeing me leads to regret? Are you just doing this so you can tie up the loose ends of what you left hanging in midair? Has that been bothering you? Well. I want to see more of that torture, all of a sudden. Give me some more of that regret; I’ll thrive on it. Let it fill me up and smooth over all those ragged edges you left me with, ripped apart, waiting for you to come home. No note. I want to watch you work to explain yourself, every sentence followed by signs of that crippling guilt and regret streak that you have. I’d fucking love that. I’d like to see you sweat. Fall apart in front of me. It’s the least I deserve.

So I find myself saying, “Sure.”

You look surprised. “Yeah?” Then you clear your throat, that nervous tick you have. I want to laugh. I do, a little bit. You probably think it’s me being uncomfortable, nervous, shy. But really, Zayn, I’m laughing at you. “Yeah, cool, is um, is Friday good?”

“Friday, sure. Where?”

It looks like you never got that far in planning. I get the game you’re playing now, the romantic sweep-you-off-your-feet move you’ve planned. See me, say something, let the crushing sadness envelope you when I brush you off. You become the victim, and your sins are suddenly absolved because hey, at least you _tried._

I wonder where he is, why you’re here instead. I know another part of you wanted that brushing off for the writing material it could bring, for the inspiration. You’ve been so wronged. You’d never planned as far as where to catch coffee because you didn’t think you had to.

Well.

I can see you. All of you. You can’t hide in shadows, not with me. Coffee it is.

“The Green Dragon?”

“Yeah.”

And then I smile, big, blinding, I wave, and I tell you it’s nice to see you. You need two to play a game, if that’s what you want. I’m in. God, just you wait. This time, Zayn, there’ll be a different winner. Fuck all this shit about missing you and wanting to drive away together, rain on the windshield. That’s bullshit, isn’t it. Or at least it is now. Because it’s amazingly much harder to romanticize you when you’re standing right in front of me, uncomfortable, in a red sweater with cartoon eyes on it.

I let gravity take me down the steps the way I was supposed to go, away from that bewildered face of yours, still standing so casual, hands in your pockets, getting shoulder bumped by other passersby on the street.

I keep smiling until I’ve swiped myself in and I keep smiling until the train arrives.

It’s only when I get through the subway doors that I realize just how much I’ve fucked myself over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!
> 
> i decided to keep it within the journal entry format bc its just easier for me to write apparently so yah


	6. Chapter 6

_**Zayn** _

Fuck.

January 21, 2015  
10:58 a.m.

Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck. FUCK. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.

This was wrong. I just got on your bad side. Fuck. I didn’t see that part of you coming. But I saw the change in the set of your lips and it scared me.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I’m going to meet you anyway. I love you. I’ll do what you want. I’ll suffer, I swear.

I love you.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Friday it is.

Fuck.


	7. Chapter 7

I made an emergency appointment with my therapist the second I got home.

Because I’m an idiot.

January 21, 2015  
9:27 p.m.

I called her on the phone and told her what happened, and she’s annoyed. I can tell and it’s funny but it shouldn’t be. Like, she has that mask of empty understanding down pat, and I respect how hard she works to keep that sometimes, but I could see the cracks even over the phone. I know I’m her most annoying patient. I get brittle and hard and nervous and jump away from things and end up falling down another rabbit hole.

She likes to break things down.

She likes to take me apart, find the broken piece while my rabbit legs lay flaccid and limp on her examination table, and then she likes to put it all back together again. That’s what she’s been trying to do for the last two months. Every session she puts another piece to the side, holds it up to the light, shows it to me, then exposes my innards, and inspects.

Or, well, actually she holds up the microscope for me to do the inspecting. Except I don’t have the Ph.D., so I can never do it. The scribbles in her notebooks are as illegible as what I see inside, but apparently she makes sense of it and never tells me. She tells me in questions that I have to answer and somehow I always get it wrong.

It’s a little bit hilarious to watch her pretend like her sigh of frustration is just a sigh when I can’t go deep enough into my instinctual drives and troubled past on Tuesday afternoons.

I know that’s what she’s going to try to do tomorrow. Take me apart, figure out what made me say yes to you, what game I’m playing with myself and why, if somehow it’s related to the fact that I never had a “father” figure, if maybe I really just have daddy issues — she’s been holding onto that one ever since I told her my parents were divorced — and then work for 45 minutes in her bland office on the 5th floor to fix it and put me back together again before her next patient comes in.

She holds my rabbit legs down like this because she’s a doctor and trained in medicine and psychology and all those things listed on the business card of hers folded in the bottom of my wallet, and that’s what they teach them all. All those doctors. All those engineers. Basically everyone except me, apparently. I never learned it. That you take a complicated process, pull it apart, find the problem, and fix it. That process has worked for decades, centuries. For everything. Reductive science is the official name, I think. And it usually solves everything. Like Jonas Salk’s vaccine.

It helps you not get sick. It helps you live longer. It helps you survive against the things that try to kill you. It helps you stop believing in myths that tell you that rubbing a rabbit leg on a keychain will actually give you luck.

For some reason, it’s not working on you and me. Or maybe just me. Why the fuck do I always lump you in with me, come to think of it? I am my own person. Get out of here, Jesus. This is my therapy session, and your name definitely crops up too much.

Reductive science isn’t working.

Probably because of you.

So you and me, then.

Maybe we’re just going to keep falling down the rabbit holes we leave behind for each other.

Maybe there’s something innate about how well we know each other, how determined we are to tear each other apart. There’s something about the combination of you and me that’s going to result in destruction no matter what we do, I guess. Maybe it’s just inevitable and I should just accept the fact that I’m destined to always be thrown off by your wake, always jumping into holes with no way out, always living in the city when I wanted a farm. Maybe that kind of mutual destruction is kind of inevitable, you know? Is that why the two of us were placed here on this fucking earth? To destroy each other?

Is that too deep? Probably. Because I don’t think we’re that important to the universe to have such a noble and pointless purpose, but maybe that’s just what it is. Maybe destruction is just going to happen.

And keep happening, again and again. Maybe coffee is just the start of the next cycle. The Green Dragon. My writerly side that you bring out made me google it to see if there was any deep meaning behind the name, but it's just a film, The Revenge of the Green Dragon. That's all it is. Wikipedia doesn't give you much, just a couple grammatically incorrect sentences.

_Chinese immigrant Sonny (Chon) joined the Chinatown gang 'The Green Dragons' when he was a kid, and worked his way up through the gang hierarchy. But as he quickly rose up the ranks and became the notorious in the community, only to find his life falling apart around him._

Fitting, I guess.

One of us is just going to end up leading the other one down another rabbit hole, and soon.

The only question is when.

And then how many times will it happen again until someone finally, finally gives up.

You looked so beautiful in red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne :-)


	8. Chapter 8

_**Zayn** _

My least favorite thing in the world is seeing the grass peek through what was once a delicate snowfall because of people’s footprints or sled tracks or the haphazard gathering of snow to build a snowman.

I pass it as I walk along Central Park.

January 23, 2015  
9:01 a.m.

It throws me sideways, on edge, uncomfortable. The unnatural clashing of different seasons, I guess that’s what it is, even though it’s the dead of winter. You shouldn’t see that. Like, it’s not meant to be seen. It’s not a casual co-existence; it’s full of awkwardness, vulnerability, dominance. The grass looks bald and unearthed before it should be. They’re basically different worlds accidentally both existing at the same time.

It’s not like you and me.

Because neither of us are bald, even though you keep saying you’re going that way. You’re not bald, I promise, but I’d love you even if you were, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

The snow and the grass are not what I remember of you and me because we used to be able to co-exist.

I think it’s you and me now.

But it’s not like we were before I left.

I use too many metaphors, I know. It’s fucking ridiculous and most of them don’t even make sense and I try too hard to fit everything together in a seamless analogy. I might be the Augustus Waters of this relationship. Except I actually do smoke cigarettes so I shot that one in the foot, but my point is that if anyone ever read my journal they’d definitely be like, wow, what a pretentious dick. He uses so many metaphors. Turn him into an Internet meme, because he’s a dick.

Everyone on the Internet would hate me. They’d be like, your fucking snow analogy doesn’t even make sense — what the fuck made that sweet boy Harry ever think he was a good match? What an idiot. And you would be painted as the beautiful heroine and people would flock to you, more than they do already, and love you and tread on you because you’re the ground, the grass of my terrible metaphor. Everyone needs you. Beautiful, shivering, alive, and I’m what’s killing you. They’ll kill me in an angry backlash. Have you seen the salt they throw on the sidewalks? They’ve got reserves for killing things like me.

A heavy blanket of snow, oppression masquerading as serenity.

Is that what I do to you? I’m sorry.

I’ll keep saying sorry until the sun eventually melts me away.

That would be good, you know? Nothing left. Just sometimes small reminders of me stacked up in the corners of parking lots and along the edges of streets, mixed in with grime until I become slush, and then I melt, finally, slipping and dribbling down into the gutters with the rest of the shit. Gone. Done with. Just a temporary annoyance to you, the permanent grass, and I’ll just come back every season to annoy you and smother you and destroy you and then leave after I’m destroyed, too.

We wouldn’t have to clash anymore. You can grow, thrive. I’ll swim with some shit in the gutters. It’s where I belong. I could make some nice friends down there, in my shit pile. We could have a barbecue! Have a family dinner every Sunday, maybe start a community center for our little shit pile children.

I know I’m being dramatic.

You’d tell me to cut the shit and get back to what I’m trying to say if you ever read this over my shoulder.

You don’t have to tell me that. All of this metaphorical crap I’m spewing really just means that in the real world I’ll just walk away and leave you alone and stop bothering you and in turn you can live your life and I’ll live mine and we can go our separate ways and eventually get married to a sweet boy or smart girl in a state where it's legal and then maybe get divorced in twenty five years and then start a page on a dating website while our kids go out and party on the weekends and we're never satisfied with how we turned out in life so we buy an expensive sports car to ease the pain. Anyway, this isn’t a cry for help. I’m not going to call you up on the phone at 2 in the morning and tell you that no, you can’t leave me, because I have the knife to my throat and you’re the only thing that’s keeping me from cutting. That kind of death is too literal for me. I think.

I can just melt away. Let me just melt away.

It’s what I’m good at, anyway.

But for some reason, I’m still walking toward The Green Dragon, past the snow with the grass peeking through.

I’m not really sure when you’re getting here.

We never set a time and I’m afraid to call your phone, but I’ve cleared the whole day, so I can wait it out. I called in sick to work and this place closes at 8 p.m. and I’ve brought my computer in case I need to wait a while, so I’m basically prepared to sit here for hours if it comes to that, which is ridiculous, but I know that if I make a wrong move it all ends. So wait I will.

You might call and set a time the second I get in. That would be something you’d usually do. But I’m not counting on it.

You might actually not show, I don’t know. Forget, or wake up late, or decide you shouldn’t have said yes after all. That wouldn’t be unreasonable. I’d applaud you for that actually, because it’s probably the right decision.

And then this also might just be some sick waiting game of yours, where you never planned on showing up in the first place. Because I saw the set of your lips and I know you’re up to something. I’m not sure what it is yet.

But for some reason, I’m still walking toward The Green Dragon, past the snow with the grass peeking through.

It’s probably because I remember when you weren’t the grass and I wasn’t the snow or something and I think that somehow I can get that back. Maybe that’s it. I think it is. Probably. Otherwise I wouldn’t have stopped you on the way to the subway.

My legs are propelling themselves down the sidewalk, slipping on black ice and scooting me around slower movers, parents with children, those joggers that always look so athletic with their leggings and neon track shirts and sweatbands but are actually jogging at literally negative five miles an hour and are taking up their entire sidewalk while also taking the smallest possible steps known to mankind, and the old couples. I’m still walking toward the little coffee shop despite the literal barriers telling me to stop. I’m an idiot.

I’m an idiot, but.

I want back our casual co-existence. When we wouldn’t do anything but be in the same room together, remember that? We’d both be doing different things, writing different things, not talking, just existing. Just knowing the other one was there. It was an intenseness that I miss and we were just so _present,_ you know. I got so much comfort from just knowing you were there. Just there. That was really fucking nice. I liked that.

We co-existed well, I think. We didn’t inhibit growth. We didn’t destroy.

I don’t want to be snow, Harry. Maybe I can have the privilege of reincarnating as a harmless little ugly weed and you can let me thrive right alongside you, and we don’t even have to talk. Just be there. I won’t hurt you.

Please. That would be really fucking nice. I’d like that.

My hands are in my pockets and I can see it there on the corner, the little painting of the dragon shaped into the letter G, breathing fire on this fucking cold day. I feel like the heat is reaching out to me, but maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe it’s just trying to melt me like fire should. Or maybe I’m being way too fucking deep and I should just meet you for coffee like we planned and see how it goes like the adults we supposedly are because what the fuck is wrong with me? Forget this shit. Be a man and walk in there and wait for you and then tell you everything I did and don’t make excuses and don’t let you play whatever game it is I know you have planned. Grow up, what the fuck. You’d tell me that if you were here, if things were like they were before. Stop writing in metaphors.

Like a warning, a fat and wet snowflake lands flat on my cheek.

I walk in the open doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	9. Chapter 9

You’re already there when I show up, which frustrates me.

Because to be honest, I wanted you to walk in to see me already past the edge of tired of waiting for you so that I could have a stronger upperhand than I already do, and you’d feel guilty and rush over, and I could put my knight down and call check mate.

But congratulations! Your good planning just made me a little annoyed.

I wonder how early you woke up for this, because I know you hate mornings. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so fucking annoyed.

January 23, 2015  
10:39 a.m.

“Hi.”

I hate myself a little bit the second I hear myself say it because I’m pretending to sound distracted like I’ve just hurried over here from some important meeting and need to be on my way out as soon as I’m on my way in. It’s a little bit true because I just have an hour before I need to get back to my desk, but I’m putting on a show. I know. I come up behind you and toss my phone on the counter you’ve saved, the bar seats by the window.

When I do that you jump like you weren’t expecting it. And maybe you weren’t.

“Hello,” you say back, startled. Our conversations keep consisting of only hello’s and goodbye’s and it’s getting ridiculous, and immediately I just want to ask you his name. Why you’re here. Where he is. Why you didn’t leave me a note.

I don’t, because that’s desperate, isn’t it?

My order comes the next second. I took the liberty of ordering before going up to you and this place is weird so they serve you instead of making you stand and wait. We always liked that. My hands feed off the warmth when I grab it from her and say thank you, and I always say thank you, but I make a point of saying it loudly because you never do.

Maybe my frustration is because the coffeeshop thing was cliche to begin with. I don’t know why that’s always on my mind. Fucking cliches. I hate them and I hate the fact that I hate them. I hate the fact that I always write about how much I hate them, like what the fuck, right? I’m so sick of that word. I need to stop saying it. Caring about whether something is cliche or not is so pretentious. It’s so first year writing student. I hate cliches and myself by extension. Fuck.

But see, the magic about coffee shops is that there really is none. There’s no magic. It’s just a business. Dark walls and charcoal sketches framed on those dark walls and tired employees paying off student loans and sometimes big windows that let in cloudy light and background noise and a smell of coffee beans. That’s all the parts to the equation. People always go there and expect something more than they get and so they go back again and again and again and again, always kind of searching for that magic that they see in books and movies and fan fiction where people get stumped by hazel eyes.

But really, it’s just a little bit too hot in here and people are arguing over how to make a girl squirt at the next table over. There’s about seven hundred peacoats and eighty quaffed hairdos and an infinite number of hipster glasses. There’s too many other people who are in here for the short stay, the ones with suits and big watches and crease lines around their eyes, their shoes tapping against the hard wood. I think I’m on my way to being more like them, because I’ve got a big watch too now. And a briefcase. I purposefully left that at my desk. But you, Zayn, are sitting here wearing a peacoat. It hurts a fucking lot to see you with your fucking peacoat and fucking suede shoes.

I don’t fucking know why, but maybe it’s because I think I’m seeing him, not you.

I sit down finally and you do the thing you always do. You look at me from the corner of your eye and don’t really turn your head, but it’s an acknowledgement.

“You wanted to talk to me?” I ask this, I hope, delicately.

“Yeah. I, um. Sorry.” You can’t get your words in order. That, at least, is the same. Some of you is still here underneath the peacoat, I guess. Maybe the peacoat is actually what’s keeping the pieces together. I don’t know. “Sorry, is all I really wanted to say, I guess.”

Your eyes blink a few times, and your long eyelashes dust your cheeks like the lightest flush of fog, of air. You are so beautiful. Still.

“I still have your shoes,” I tell you, like an idiot. “They’re by the door. If you ever want to come around and get them, or like, the rest of your stuff, feel free, I’m usually around.”

And then I look at you and laugh because it’s so obvious you were holding your breath in preparation for an explanation, for a defense, or maybe an explosion on my part, but I’ve just popped the balloon and now you’re deflating.

“Also some of your mail, the non-junk stuff. But I threw out the typewriter.”

“I never liked that thing anyway.”

I pause. “You didn’t?”

I have trouble keeping out the slight tremor of anger, the small trembling in my rabbit legs that’s telling me to jump, leap away, away from this rabbit hole and towards another one, right now, this very second, but I push it all down like bile and look at you instead, because I honestly cannot fucking believe you right now.

“I always thought you wanted it,” you say, and I can tell it’s the truth, which makes me go a little more insane than I already am. I want to kill you. You fucking asshole. “I’ll reimburse you, I’m sorry, how much was it?”

It was three hundred and forty two dollars, seventy three cents. You fucking _asshole._

“It’s okay. Pawned it.”

It is not okay.

“Oh,” you say.

Yeah, I think. _Oh._

And then we don’t talk for a while.

When we leave, it’s raining. I see you watching the snow start to melt, and I wonder why you look so weird about it, because you never really liked snow anyway, so why do you look so weird? Why can’t I figure you out? What’s happening?

I tell you I have to get back to work when we get to the corner, and then we go our separate ways, no spoken promise of another meeting. I don’t look back.

I wonder if you’ll remember your shoes.

That was hint one.

And so the game begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne :-D


	10. Chapter 10

_**Zayn** _

His name was Michael.

And he was beautiful. More beautiful than you.

It was a cold beauty, but I couldn’t look away, so I chased it.

If we’re going to be honest, I wanted you to know that. I thought he was more beautiful than you.

January 25, 2015  
2:14 a.m.

I still think about him. I love you, and I love you now, and I want you now, but I loved him. Maybe more. Maybe in a different way. I don’t know. If I did know, things would be different.

I probably wouldn’t still be dressing like him.

I don’t know why this is coming out now. I pushed this down, but it’s still there.

I loved him.

I think I still do. But that doesn’t matter now, because he dropped me just like I dropped you. He’s gone. Flying to Australia without me, which is a ridiculous choice for graduate school, but he’s there now, so it doesn’t matter, because he wanted to meet new people, and this was a great run, Zayn, but it’s over now.

It’s over now. That’s what he said.

And you know what, Harry? Maybe leaving a note with a reason is worse than leaving with nothing at all. Maybe. Because with no note you got a blunt blow to your chest and it hurt everywhere and it hurt for longer than it should have, I know, and I’m sorry, but knowing the reason for him leaving compacted it all down into a bullet. And that bullet can cut through you cleanly and swiftly and fatally because it reminds you that everything can have an end, even if you never thought it would. Even if you thought it was too beautiful to end. The way a reason can minimize everything into insignificance can actually kill you.

And I think that’s worse.

I lied before. The pain when he left was a thousand times worse than the pain when I left you.

I loved him. I didn’t think I loved you anymore. When I left you I felt nothing. It was simple.

I just thought that if we’re going to be honest, actually honest, I should tell you. Because I'm an idiot who did an idiotic thing, but you know, no one does anything without a reason. And reasons always seem valid at the time. I thought I had a valid reason.

I'm still not sure if it was.

I’m a disgusting human being and I know that. Like at the same time I don't think that I am because my reason was that I just needed love and Michael was it for me, but I don't know. Fuck. That's really it. And then that love was fucking one-sided, apparently.

I know I'm crawling back on bloody knees for you with a paper thin excuse, almost as thin as the note I could have written you, but that's not even the case, really. I'm not a bad person entirely just like you're not a good person entirely. In real life there are no antagonists. We're all just people.

And we all just repeat the same human mistakes and experiences again and again and again.

And here I am, fucking up and making mistakes and wanting you again and again and again. A cycle.

But we can co-exist. We were good at that. We breathed together, at the same pace. And I need love even though I know how much you hate it when people say they need love instead of saying they just want it, but fuck, Harry. People need love. It's like a necessary thing. So shoot me.

Actually, I wouldn't mind if you did. I know how it feels.

I'm sorry.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry and I wish I regret it all but I don’t.

I’ll pick up the shoes in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i struggled so much with posting this bc i wasn't sure if this was what i wanted but i decided that yes it is because zayn is a real person and real people have real reasons for doing real dumb things, and usually those reasons seem entirely valid to them, even if they don't seem like that to anyone else
> 
> so
> 
> zayns a terrible person, but a real one
> 
> I'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	11. Chapter 11

What if I woke up one day and all I saw were silhouettes?

Would I still have fallen in love with you?

January 25, 2015  
7:12 a.m.

If the whole world were blinding and everyone was cast in shadow. Outlines but nothing else, just strong shoulders or thin torsos to tell their personalities by. You would have a strong jaw, I could tell that from your profile. You’d have a lithe torso, thin legs that I might want to make fun of when we’re in bed together, intertwined on your twin extra long mattress, and you'd have lovely shoulders. Stately, thin, elegant. 

Would I still have fallen in love with you?

Maybe. 

I would have led myself into believing that I had also seen a sliver of light on your cheek, maybe a touch of color, and I would have allowed myself to have gone after that. Loved you for that sliver of light because I’d never seen it before. I would have chased it, not you, but never have known the difference.

I wonder if I would have done that, if we really are inevitable.

When I wake up it’s to you knocking on my door.

I know it’s you because it’s the knock of someone who used to think they didn’t have to knock on my door. Hesitant, but not because you’re in a new place; it’s because you’re in an old place, a place you remember, but you’re just a visitor now.

For a few minutes I don’t want to get out of bed, except it’s not a few minutes, it’s a few seconds, and then I’m up and adjusting my boxers and walking to my door with you on the other side. I’d gotten into the habit of wearing boxers to bed in case you ever came in the middle of the night, back home, back to me. I wanted to be ready to open the door. It feels ridiculous now. I should just open the knob, stark naked, and yell, "Look at what you missed, motherfucker!"

That would be a good option. I consider it.

But this morning my two cups of coffee might finally have a pair of lips on them again, instead of just always seeing the bottom of the sink. I won't let that go to waste. The boxers stay on.

I didn’t really expect you to come. It’s only a little past seven. Mornings are really becoming your thing lately, and I know you didn’t just wake up, so I wonder what it was that made you stay awake the whole night.

Selfishly, I hope it’s me.

No, Zayn, I know it’s me. My therapist said I shouldn’t expect anything from you, that you have your own problems that you need to sort out and I should focus on my own, but if I know anything, I know that you only stay awake for the entire night for a few things. I know I’m one of them. I know you love sleep too much to stay awake for anything else.

Maybe it was him. Maybe you miss him.

You probably do. My therapist told me, a little too frankly, that you’re only here because you miss him and can’t have him. I’m scraps, basically, that you’ve resorted to trying to put back together into a kind-of working boyfriend. 

And for some reason I’m letting you. She said I shouldn't do that.

I open the door and you’re there, hands in your pockets like always, but you’re not wearing your peacoat and instead of your fucking suede shoes you’ve got a pair of those sneakers on, the ones you thought were hilariously incredible because they lit up when you walked.

If we’re playing a game, that was a good move. I feel a painfully strong surge of actual, real, rekindled love.

I don’t know why you keep blowing air on me when you know I’m burned out. I’m just embers now, but you’re back, trying to rekindle whatever fire you put out in the first place. Now I know why fires are always overused representations of love. It's because it fits.

Call me Ember. Maybe that’ll be my stripper name. I hear they make a lot of money; I could use that. Buy a plane ticket and fly away from you and toward my stripper mansion. That’s a good idea, I think.

If I had a stripper mansion I’d probably never think about you again.

But here you are, looking fucking terrible in the hallway, heavy rings under your eyes, slouching in a hoodie like we’re still in college. You might have done that on purpose. Just like how I moved your Doc Martens farther away from the door last night so that if you ever did come, you’d be forced to come inside.

So I can brutally murder you with your own boot or so I can just have you with me a little longer, I don’t know.

You do the little acknowledgment thing and I move aside, gesturing you to come into the room you never thought you’d see again two months ago.

Only two fucking months. I can’t believe that sometimes. That's not even a full semester of school. That's like, the space in between two haircuts. That's less than the amount of time between getting an invitation to the wedding and going to the wedding itself. The neighbors downstairs are blasting Sunday morning cartoons, and it really cheapens what should be a very serious mood.

“Morning,” I tell you, my voice still dead from sleep, and I let you sit down at the little table. Our place is so small that our kitchen is also our living room, so you’re technically in my bedroom right now, but I don’t tell you that. I can't fucking believe that I just called this "our place." I'm going to jump out the window now. Goodbye.

I forgot to move the sheets from the couch like I’d planned. Fuck. I’m exposed. You see where I sleep. You don’t say anything.

“Morning,” you mumble back. Your voice is broken and dry and without even thinking I start to make you a cup of coffee to fix it. It’s not my fault, I swear. Just muscle memory.

You are so beautiful, Zayn, at the little table. It fucking hurts. Your voice, the way you walk, the way you get consumed in your guilt. I know something’s weighing on your mind right now, and I know it’s that guilt you always carry around on your back, but for some reason I don’t think it’s over me. This isn’t lingering guilt about leaving me. It’s something else and I know because I know you, but I don’t know what. It should be a warning. I should listen to my therapist. Whatever brought you back to me is none of my business. You are my past. It’s perverse to bring you back into the present again.

You are so beautiful. 

I think I’d love your silhouette. I make your coffee with two spoons of sugar and no milk. The cartoons downstairs switch to commercials.

I think I might lose this game, Zayn. I’m falling behind.

Your shoes are in the bedroom.

“His name was Michael,” you say when I give you the coffee, our hands brushing, and it’s the first physical contact I’ve had with you since you left, so of course he would come in between. “I just thought you might have wanted to know. And he was the one who dumped me.”

You look like you want to say something else, or at least you were preparing to say something else that you had been dreading saying out loud, but it looks like the dread wins out. You stay silent. 

“Thanks for the coffee,” you say, and you sound sincere.

“Your shoes are in the bedroom.”

We don’t speak for a while, mostly because my mind is trying to vomit out information it’s just received. I’m heaving, because he’s real, isn’t he, he’s a real person, Michael. I want to vomit it out but I can’t. I’m just standing here in my boxers like an ass while you drink my coffee and sit on my chair and tell me the name of the ex you left me for. I don’t know why I ever thought I wanted that.

Was he beautiful, Zayn? Had you finally met your match with him? Would you have loved his silhouette? He left you, did he? Is that when you also coincidentally realized you loved me more than him? When he left you? Suddenly I like Michael a lot more than I like you.

You finish your coffee and stand up, and I remember the game. The rules have just changed.

The rules have just stretched, bended to fit this new twist. When I see you look at me I begin to stretch, too, letting you see the length of my torso, the way my boxers dip down far, and then I rub my eyes and smile in that coy little smile you said used to give you butterflies. I take your arm and lead you to the bedroom, and then I let my fingers trace down your forearm when I leave to pick up your shoes. 

I feel you shiver.

Maybe it’s from fear, maybe it’s those butterflies, maybe it’s muscle memory.

I hope it’s fear, and I hope you don’t know why.

“They’re right here,” I breathe, keeping in that croaky morning grogginess. I’m a masochist, I think, and you’re my knife, the one I tease over my throat, ready to plunge. Usually I just nick the less major parts, watch the blood gush and then slow quickly. I think I’m finally going for the plunge.

I’m going for the plunge.

“I missed you,” I say. You look like that hurt like a deliciously desired punch. I hope it did. I know you. I know what you want. And you want this.

You are so beautiful.

You stay for eight more hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	12. Chapter 12

“Why?”

January 27, 2015  
1:23 p.m.

My shell hardens a little more, so brittle now it’s close to cracking, splintering under its own tightness, splitting down the seams from either the heat of fire or the cold of winter ice. Which might be a good thing, but I’m not really sure, because I’m not really sure of anything right now. Ever since you left Sunday I’ve been static, blank. Confused. You do that to me. I spent a lot of time staring at walls, which is weird, because I never stare at walls. Not even when you left the first time. Staring at walls should be reserved for montage scenes in movies, not real people.

When you left this time, you tried to kiss me. But that’s not part of the game yet.

So I pulled away, like an idiot, and you slammed the door a little harder than you should have on the way out, and so I’ve been staring at walls. It’s been nearly 48 hours.

“I don’t know,” I say, dumbly.

“Did you ask him?”

“To stay? No.”

A heavy breath comes from one of us, or probably both. Quiet fills the air, and it’s so thick I can almost reach out and touch it.

Instead, I close my eyes.

“Did he ask _you?”_

“No.”

“Then what happened, Harry?”

“I’m an idiot.”

And it’s true, I know it is, even though I also know she’s about to tell me it’s not.

“You know that isn’t true.”

The muted sounds of traffic come in through her thin windows and I lay on her couch, twitchy. Usually she says the patients like to look at her, like to sit up and have a conversation, but that’s always hard for me. I like laying down, keeping my eyes closed, pretending she’s just the voice in my head.

 _I’m not an idiot,_ I think. _I’m not an idiot._

“It was really nice,” I say, and I know I sound like I’m lying when I say it. “He was just really nice. He came to pick up his things, and then it just felt right. I don’t know. It just happened. I didn’t think about it.”

It feels ridiculous to be here. My game is falling apart around me, and I’m only just standing. My life supply is running low. You’ve found the cheat code and you’re using it, and using it well, and I’ve barely lasted a week. Every time I think of you I want to vomit, heave, like we’re in the final battle and you’re using your death ray to hold me at the edge of a cliff and I can’t help but keep looking down and seeing where I’m going to fall, and yet I can’t help but keep walking towards it anyway, step by step. Maybe I’m mistaking the warmth of your death ray on my throat for something else.

You’re good at this game. You know the tricks.

“Really nice?”

She sounds skeptical about you, Zayn, like she doesn’t think you’re really nice. Well.

She’s good at her job, I guess. Good at seeing through the bullshit. Maybe that’s what those coke-bottle glasses do for her, the ones she wears on the bridge of her slightly crooked nose; maybe they’re actually bullshit goggles. They allow you to see through the bullshit other people throw at you. Possibly so powerful that they allow you to see through your own.

I wish I had a pair of those. You wouldn’t have been in my life if I had a pair of bullshit goggles, that’s for fucking sure. Maybe QVC sells a pair. I’ll watch tonight. Green would be a nice color. Maybe hazel — like horn-rimmed ones, maybe — so I could wear them around like a delicious touch of irony.

I don’t know why I’m not telling her the truth.

Why I won’t tell her the game I’m playing or where the rulebook is or why there isn’t actually a rulebook at all. Why I’m cheating at the game I made and because of that, I’m losing, standing on the edge of a cliff that I may as well have programmed in there for myself to fall down.

I don’t know why I won’t tell her those things. Those are the kinds of things you’re supposed to tell your therapist.

Maybe it’s because then she’ll tell me how much more insane I am than she realized, and maybe I’ll be afraid because I’ll already know. Or maybe because I want to be a tortured artist and if she knows everything, then she’ll tell me how I’m feeling really isn’t all that uncommon. That it’s normal, really. Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of the most. That I’m not alone in feeling like this. That other people have obviously had worse, and this is just what everyone goes through at one point or another. I don’t want her to say that. Even if I know she won’t. I know no matter what I say she’ll validate how I’m feeling, but you never know with people, do you? You never know what they really mean underneath their words and shit.

Maybe that’s why I never tell her the truth. I don’t want her to tell me the truth too, I guess. A journal, at least, never talks back.

“Yeah, really nice.”

“That’s why you let him stay over?” She sounds, if anything, more skeptical. “Do you think he turned over a new leaf, maybe?”

“Yeah.” I’m lying through my teeth.

“Really.”

She can see the truth getting caught in my mouth, can smell the bad breath of all the lies I’m spewing coming out instead. She can see how furiously I’m working to get rid of it like an annoying piece of broccoli that’s caught between my two front teeth, nagging, itching, stubborn, and she can see how determinedly I’m trying to lie to myself until I finally believe the shit I’m saying.

Sometimes I hate therapy.

I find myself on her examination table without even realizing.

“Well, good for him,” she says, not hiding her sarcasm. “But Harry, if he’s not good for your mental health, and remember last session we agreed that he wasn’t, do you think this is a good decision? Do you maybe need a little more time to recover before you jump back into things? Before you jump back in with him? You don’t owe him anything, remember. Joshua’s got his own issues to deal with and they are not your fault and they are not your responsibility to fix. You don’t owe Joshua anything. You need to work on yourself and not worry about him, don’t you think?”

I told her your name was Joshua.

“We didn’t have sex,” I blurt out. My rabbit legs give a twitch. I want to run away.

“Why do you think you didn’t?”

“It was the middle of the day.” I say it like it’s obvious, and I can feel my shell start to creep back over me.

“Would it have bothered you to have sex with him in daylight?”

She’s so frank sometimes, Jesus.

“No.”

She writes something quickly down in her notebook, and I have a feeling it’s something along the lines of, “patient is still a pathological liar, obviously would have had a problem if it was light out because he wouldn’t have been able to handle seeing Joshua’s face like that because he’s still in love with him and would have self-destructed otherwise. His shell would have cracked at long last, but in all the wrong places.”

It’s true.

Finally, the sigh that I’ve been waiting for comes. “You’re going to have to give me more than one word answers, Harry. I know I’m your therapist, but I’m not a mind reader. You’ll have to let me in eventually. Otherwise you can find someone else.”

She’s like that, Meredith. Blunt, direct, too harsh. And she always tells me to call her Meredith. Names are a weird thing, you know? Because with a name you can think like, oh, Meredith’s a real person, and maybe Meredith’s having a bad day, and maybe Meredith’s saying these things to me because Meredith is upset and really needs to say them to herself. Because you never know what makes people say things, do you? Maybe Frank left her again. Maybe her daughter Julia is going through a phase that’s making her worry. Maybe this has nothing to do with me at all.

Meredith’s hair is gray even though she’s barely in her forties, and her hands are blue like my grandmother’s, veins running over the tops of her bones and creating in her skin a topographical map of life lines. Her face has wrinkles, and her blue eyes seem a little clouded. She always looks tired, a cup of cooling coffee perpetually on her desk.

I pity her sometimes. I want to switch places, Zayn. She needs a rest on this couch every now and again, I think, more than I do.

Because people can pick away at your skin until finally you catch a glimpse of your hollow bones exposed, peeking through, betraying you. Until your hardened edges finally come out.

Maybe Frank is her Joshua. Maybe that’s what I’m seeing.

Maybe Meredith and I have a lot more in common than I thought.

“I know,” I tell her. “I’m working on it.”

For now, that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took me a few days to write but i had a few really bad headaches i apologize and also help me I'm crying there is a beautiful and gorgeous boy sitting behind me in the library right now as i post gay one direction fan fiction what has my life come to
> 
> I'm on tumblr at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	13. Chapter 13

_**Zayn** _

When you come it feels like I’m at Heaven’s Gate.

I miss that feeling.

January 28, 2015  
1:30 p.m.

I didn’t slam the door because you didn’t kiss me. It would have been nice, even wonderful after that blow job you gave me, if you’d let me taste myself on your tongue, but that’s not it. It’s because we didn’t have sex. And here comes the part where you hate me again.

But I miss having sex with you, Harry. I miss the way your eyes would open and I would fall into them like a warm bath. Like I’d come home or something, and everything was right, the way you dropped all pretense and let yourself feel everything. I miss the way your hands, those beautiful large steady hands would hold on to me, grip onto my lower back and push me in deeper and deeper until your mouth would drop open and your cheeks would flush a delicious strawberry pink to match your lips, to match the head of your pretty cock. I miss the way your legs would fall open and you’d be so pliable beneath me. I miss how much you loved that. That’s what I would get off on.

I miss the way I could hold onto your hips and knead my fingers into the soft flesh there, the way I could rub your strong thighs or twist my fingers through your hair and see the sweat bead on your forehead when we got too into it.

I miss the way your old neighbors downstairs would bang a broom on their ceiling whenever the bed would start bouncing, hitting the wall, sliding a little across the hardwood floor, scraping scratches into the grain in the same way you scraped scratches into my skin.

I really, really miss that. I miss seeing you come the most. I miss it so much that when you brought me into our old bedroom I was immediately fantasizing, watching you with your sleepy eyes and adorable croaky voice while you touched my arm and stretched, still gone from sleep, and in my mind I was already throwing you on that bed of ours and pulling off your boxers and having my way with you while you lay splayed out beneath me, open, wanting it, in love, and I made you feel good. That's all I wanted. We used to understand each other, totally and completely, and we had a rhythm. With Michael it was never like that. Not really.

And then it didn’t happen. The frustration had been building the longer it didn’t happen, even though I never said anything, never asked you, but maybe that's because I knew you wouldn't let it happen. I slammed the door when I finally left. I’m sorry. It’s a disgusting trait I have. I love sex with you too much, I think about it too much, I want you too much. I’m not like that with anyone else. I’m needy for you and I love watching you come, and I knew you were doing it on purpose when you blew me and then wouldn’t let me give you anything back, wouldn’t let me see you satisfied. That’s where the frustration came from, I think.

I’m sorry. You were St. Peter denying me entrance to Heaven’s Gate. And you had every right to do that. I'm just desperate for you.

Isn’t it great how I just compared the pearly gates to vicious sexual pleasure? I think it’s great. I deserve a cake. Maybe I’ll bake myself a cake.

Actually, no I don't. I’m a disgusting person. Jesus Christ. Writing this down, it sounds so much worse. I just read it back and I sound like a sexual predator. Maybe I should keep this to myself. Holy fuck.

I get it if you hate me. If you think I think of you as an object, even if I don’t.

But I wonder why you sleep on the couch, Harry. I saw the sheets there, the mess of someone who lives in between two states. Do you think about these things too? The same things I do, the way I do? Because we used to understand each other. We used to be able to co-exist naturally, beautifully, easily, think the same things, believe in each other and no one else, have a rhythm. I wonder if that's still there.

What do you miss?

Do you think of me?

Because I think of you.

I miss the way we were.

I'm sorry I slammed the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	14. Chapter 14

My camera is waiting for me on the kitchen table. 

The button for the shutter is tensed and still, the light reflecting off of it from our ugly overhead bulbs, and the is screen black, waiting. It’s waiting to take pictures of you, I think. I think that’s why I got it. You’re coming Friday night, we planned on that. My therapist doesn’t know.

I don’t have any pictures of you.

If your clothes weren’t still here, and if you weren’t back in my life, you might have never existed.

I don’t want to take that chance again. I need evidence so I can keep them in a portfolio, show them to the police when I need to tell them who destroyed me and they investigate the case. I need to take pictures of you. I’ll fill up the memory card so that it goes back and copies over those pictures of Central Park. They sucked, anyway.

Maybe I’ll replace them with some ones of your hair, the way you’ve let it grow out, oddly similar to mine but of course silkier, more smooth, beautiful. Maybe some ones of our height difference, the way I can sometimes rest my chin on your head, only sometimes. Or contrast the softness of my edges with the sharpness of yours. Maybe get those hazel eyes.

Maybe get those hazel eyes crying. You know, Zayn, I’ve never seen you cry.

January 29, 2015  
8:31 p.m.

Oh, also. The rulebook has just come in from the shop where I’d apparently had it printed — I didn’t even know I was waiting for it, but it’s finally here! And I thought you might like to know that I know the end goal of our game now. It’s a really nice cover on the book, too. Laminated. I’ll show you when you come over. But this book is golden, now that I’ve finally gotten my hands on it. Answers all the important questions. It’s incredible, really. I don’t know how I was navigating us without this before. Because now I know things. In beautifully scripted font, it explains:

What is the aim of this game? 

How am I going to know when I’ve won? 

What happens if you win, and who rolls the dice?

Well, Zayn, I’ve finally figured it all out. 

It’s simple, really, now that I know what I have to do. A very small thing that can really only let me win against you, because it's no one else's demise. Only yours. This is a very specialized game we're playing. Now that I have this book, now that I’ve had this revelation — I’m fucking ecstatic, really! -- my breathing has been easier. Thank you for that. It came to me while I was taking a shit, as all the best things seem to do. I know what I’m playing towards now.

I’m going to make you cry. Because you know, Zayn, I've never seen you cry.

And right now, I have the dice in my hand. I’ll see you on Friday, darling.

I fucking love calling you darling. I’ll carve it into your skin with my fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne :-)
> 
> and pls ignore the fact that at the time of posting this, this journal entry is technically seven hours into the future


	15. Chapter 15

_**Zayn** _

“This movie sucks.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“I love it.”

“Me, too.”

January 30, 2015  
11:57 p.m.

Your apartment has a cozy dirty feel that I forgot I missed. Your windows are small but the rooms are usually bright, and you live on the fourth floor so you can always hear the traffic on the street below. Your kitchen bleeds into the living room, which is where we are right now, and there's just one bedroom, one bathroom, one closet. That closet holds everything. Sheets, towels, books, books, books, books, books. Books litter your apartment everywhere. Your bedside table? Made of books. The top of your coffee table hasn't seen the light of day in nearly two years. Because books.

The lease is almost up in about five or six months, and I know you're going to find another place. That makes me so afraid. I love this place.

My expensive pen drawer is still there in place of what should be the knife drawer in the kitchen, and when I went to the bathroom an hour ago I found all my paints stashed under the sink.

It's amazing how you've adapted, living with all these pieces of me still here even though I'm gone. I feel even more like a worthless little asshole than before. I can't believe I did this to you.

Your living room is really just a space big enough for this huge leather couch and a television, one coffee table.

We sit in calmness, in comfort. You're breathing a little heavily on my thick knit sweater, the gray fibers scratching your peachy smooth skin. I think you picked it out on Canal Street, bargained for it with your cute fluttery eyelashes and dimples and curly hair. You have an overflowing stock of perfected flirting advantages, which you whip out from time to time.

You're incredible sometimes.

It’s strange how easily we slip back into the old ways of things once the lights go off. There’s still a hint of unease, of bristling, when I move your hair in a way that I forgot you didn’t like but Michael always did. When I shift because I’ve forgotten what it feels like to have someone lie on you, because I’m still thinking in terms of me being the one to curl up in someone else’s arms.

That sounds stupid, doesn’t it. But it’s true.

There’s a ghostly feeling that he’s in the room with us, Michael, standing in the doorway to the bedroom or something, watching us. Throwing everything slightly off-kilter, not letting us completely forget. Trying to wedge himself in between us, just slightly. Like when you’re at your junior prom and one of the teachers tells you to leave room for Jesus, and you always think, wow, I didn’t know Jesus was into this sort of thing.

There’s a ghostly feeling that our old selves are in here too, living out our life the way it would have gone if I hadn’t left you. They’re on the couch with us but more casual, more in love and cozied up because there was never a break or rift between them. They’re sitting right beside us, silent and intimidating, impossible to ignore. Role models for the way to do love like the parents who we’ll never live up to.

They’ve got an old love, the other us, simple and pure and unachievable now. So I guess why even try, right? The old us was a honeymoon but now we’re in the grit of things, the real part. Maybe if I hadn’t left you things would have slowly burned out, died eventually. We would have gotten bored with pleasantries and subsequently gotten bored of each other. Getting blowed out fast and hard by the wake of me leaving you and then getting relit again could actually be what saved us. Maybe that’s what’s keeping us going.

But they’re still there, right beside us, an echo.

It feels a little crowded in here. And I feel like we’re more the imposters here than they are, but I’m trying to close my eyes to it and let us breathe instead. Because you’re still here and I am too and I have your head tucked into my shoulder like it used to be, almost. If this is the grit of things, I wouldn’t mind. I’d take it.

You’ve finished Luther while I’ve been away, so now we’re on The Avengers.

The violent action is a nice background noise for our little domestic scene. Can you fucking believe it? A week ago we were ripped apart and now we’re domestic again. I don’t know how it happened so quickly. How it happened, like, at all. You’re in your favorite sweats, the ones that are exactly the same as I remember them, ketchup stain on the hem, and your body temperature is keeping me warm. I can’t remember how many times we’ve tried to watch this movie together and fallen asleep — four, five? — but we always go back and put it on because you swear, this time we’ll make it to the end.

I happen to love superheroes, so I watched this movie all the way through once without you knowing because you always thought they were a bit ridiculous, but I stay with you every time you put it on.

You said that when it started playing tonight. That superheroes were ridiculous. It should have been a warning, but it was you, so it wasn’t. And so now we’re watching it anyway, dozing off in alternating intervals.

The warmth of your head is so familiar. I love you. I love you.

We stay away from the bedroom.

Of all the places we’ve had sex, on the kitchen table, on the floor, in the shower, the one place we’ve never done it is on this couch. Maybe that’s why you sleep here. Because it’s still untainted by me. But that’s an egotistical thing to think, on my part. I know.

I wonder if I’m staying the night tonight. Where I’ll sleep. If you’ll sleep with me. If we’ll break new ground, have sex on this couch, or go back to familiarity and sleep in the bed together, legs intertwined, or sleep separately, replaying out our last chapter before Michael.

When I go to kiss your neck and you fidget away in your sleep, I feel him in the room.

This should feel more uncomfortable than it does, this crowding of ghostly echoes of us in here. But you told me when I came in a few hours ago that you just want to give it a shot, and that you’re tired of games, and for some reason I knew you really meant it, so maybe I’m a little less haunted.

“I miss you, Zayn.”

That’s what you started with.

“I don’t want to fight you, you know?”

“Come in for a little bit.”

That’s what came next.

“Let’s try this. One more time.”

“I want you.”

And it was really the you I remembered, because you didn’t apologize. You didn’t say we were both wrong. You didn’t say we should both admit our faults and move on from there.

If you had said that I would have been suspicious.

But you said that it was my fault. I fucking appreciated that, to be honest. That I screwed up, but we really do fit together, you think, and let’s try it one more time, because we work. Usually. And that it would be hard for you and probably stupid, but you want to try. That’s what you said.

You don’t know how big my heart swelled and how hard I worked to keep my eyes dry when I heard you say it. My reaction was a little fucking ridiculous, but you made me so incredibly happy, Harry. I just want to make you feel good. I didn’t know I wanted it that much. I’m trying so hard to avoid cliches here and I know I’m failing but I love you. I love you.

It’s scary how easily I agree to anything you say once you give me the smallest hint that you love me too.

On screen, a pedestrian dies.

The windows in our apartment are closed to keep in the warmth because, fuck, isn’t it fitting that it’s finally snowing outside. We missed the blizzard a few days ago but now it’s finally here, quiet and beautiful and still, piling up at the edges of the window frame. Another ghost sitting in and watching our little fucking adorable domestic scene. The windows are closed but I can still feel the cold air seep in from the cracks around the edges, so I just hold you closer, let your warmth hide it from me. I don’t want to be reminded of the cold.

I am not the snow. You are not the grass.

Because we fit, I know we do, we co-exist, we understand each other. We have a rhythm. Or we did. We’ll get it back.

We have to.

 _Because I love you,_ I think, as you start to fall asleep, your beautiful head on my shoulder. _I love you._

_I have to._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!!


	16. Chapter 16

Check fucking mate.

January 30, 2015  
11:57 p.m.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a warning that this chapter includes quite a lot of sexual favors in case you don't want to read that/don't feel comfortable reading that!
> 
> oh dear
> 
> i can't believe myself

_**Zayn** _

Maybe I left all my things because I knew I’d come back. That sounds stupid, but you know, I’m stupid. So it makes sense that I would do a stupid unconscious thing.

You woke up when the final fight scene began. When you take me into our bedroom, I see a few of my clothes spilling out of the closet. It feels like home.

January 31, 2015  
12:45 a.m.

The pale sheets are stiff, unmoved, stale. Not used to company after two months of solitude. I see the way everything in this room looks like it’s hanging in midair, like a crime scene, the papers on the desk messy and in disarray like someone’s about to come back in and order them, except no one has in a very long time.

I’m uncomfortable. I left this behind. This is my mess.

You breathe into my ear, right beside me in the dark, and in the other room the movie is still playing. Maybe we were never meant to finish that thing together, anyway. I’m thinking this when you start leading me to the bed.

I love this bed. A queen four poster, huge and expansive with a fluffy white comforter and white pillows, the wooden bed frame carved with waves and curves and intricacies and curls but painted white. We did that when we bought it. In that same antique place that we got that damned typewriter, remember? The owner was so glad to get rid of it because of the termite damage on the back — all of the usual customers, uppity white ladies with fur coats, probably — would never buy it. He sold it to us for much more than we could afford and probably much less than he’d originally wanted for it. I remember that. We fucking had to walk twelve blocks in the heat to get this back to this apartment, and only when we got to your doorman did we realize we could have taken it apart. Which is what we did to carry it up four flights of stairs.

And then when we put it back together again in this room you looked at me and said, “I think we need to paint this.”

And so we walked another eight blocks to the nearest store that sold house paint. I know you always liked to tell this story as some spontaneous thing but I remember the struggle. We were sweating by the time we got there because we didn’t have subway cards. We’d just moved here from Seattle the day before so we got lost, too, and we didn’t have enough money to pay for a cab. So we fucking walked. The whole way. I remember the process. When it was finally done I looked at you and you were so proud because the bed looked like that clean vintage aesthetic on your Pinterest, and I loved it because I had loved the process. Seeing the finished product is never as important to me as the process.

The process of walking eight blocks. Of the stroke of our brushes against the wood. Of the way you’re leading me to the bed right now, hand on the small of my back, lips to my ear in the place that makes me weak.

You know it makes me weak, and I want to fall apart because you’re doing it on purpose.

In the dark I see the white paneled walls, the paintings that I did of your college dorm room still hanging on them, untouched. There’s no typewriter at the end of the bed anymore, and for some reason that makes me feel lighter. It always felt like a weight, a little nagging thing about permanence or something. I don’t know. Like it was taking down notes on our relationship, writing it in stone, no allowance of backspaces, but now without it everything seems in freefall. More open. Like we’re finally swimming without an anchor attached to our ankles, keeping us in place.

I always hated that fucking typewriter.

When we get to the bed I climb on the pale sheets, and I was right. They are stiff, unmoved, stale, but they still smell like us. You. This place.

I wish the lease wasn’t up in six months.

I love this place.

I love you.

You come up behind me on the bed and lay me down on it and then you lay down beside me, and the moonlight is streaming in from your window, the small one that always lets in a lot of light. This light isn’t just moonlight though; it’s moving, flying across the walls at the speed of the cars below, the ones that never stop honking, not even in the early morning when I used to wake up to get a glass of water and come back to bed to you. You were so beautiful when you were sleeping. Peaceful, your cheeks like little round apples, your hair falling across your face and into your eyes. Your mouth would always drop open just a touch, and your breathing would be heavy but delicate, somehow.

You are so delicate, Harry. So good.

You’re laying down next to me now, our legs almost intertwined, and I can see the slope of your nose in the blueish dark light, the length of your eyelashes as they blink, the curving line of your forehead. You haven’t said anything but your lips are full and beautiful, and I am so goddamn in love with you, Harry. I love the way your chin rises and slopes to the smooth skin of your neck, adam’s apple underneath. I love your chest, your shoulders.

I’m in love with you, your profile, your silhouette. I forgot what I was missing, I think. I’m looking at you so intently that I know you can feel it, and then you turn to me.

Your lips come closer, closer, closer, closer, closer.

And then suddenly, they’re all I see.

“Kiss me back,” you reprimand quietly after a few seconds, gently running your hands through my hair, pushing it back and letting it slip through your fingers. It feels nice, something you’ve never been able to do with me before, and I preen into the touch, slipping my eyes closed.

I kiss you back, like you said, deep and open until my tongue slips into your mouth. You gasp around it.

You roll so your soft weight is on top of me, pinning me down, and this is different. This never happens.

I wonder how much you’ve changed while I’ve been gone.

Your chest runs along mine, and your heat transfers to my body and fills me up and electrifies me like you’re filling me full of hot coffee. My heart swells and beats faster because I’ve missed this so fucking much. You press your lips onto the hollow of my neck, open and soft like how I remember them.

If I wasn’t so alive right now, I’d think you were killing me.

Maybe you are.

I groan when you suck a small kiss into my skin.

“You like that?” you breathe, and then you flip me over so I’m on my stomach. You’ve never been so in control before, and my heart is racing and I’m so in love with you, Harry, I’m so in love.

The bulge in your sweats presses into me from behind, and it’s fitting into me and I think of your cock, the pretty pink head that matches the pretty pink of your lips, and I want it so bad. You press another kiss into the back of my neck, this time right below my ear in that warm soft spot, the spot you know I like, and you stick your tongue out between your beautiful full lips and begin to lick up and down, tickling my skin and making my stomach swoop. I press back up against you without thinking. This elicits a soft groan from you, and you press back down and forward, rubbing against me and moving the bed with us.

You start up a slow rhythm and it drives me insane, dazed from blissed happiness and pleasure, so I just lie there, letting you rut against me. My slowly hardening cock is rubbing against the fabric of my underwear, trapped in between my body and the bed, and after a minute it becomes too much. I go to unbutton my pants.

That’s when you growl a no in a voice that goes straight through me, right in my ear. You’re still keeping up the tempo, rocking down and forward, down and forward, and I can feel you huge and hard against me. My legs loosen even more under your thighs, and then you’re taking both of my hands in yours and bringing them up over my head, away from my throbbing and aching cock. With each rut, I friction against the bed and I’m nearly crying from the strain it’s taking me to not come early, and this never happens. This is so new, you taking control. I love it and your hands are clasping mine and it’s so fucking intimate, Harry, unbearably so. You twitch against me when you hear me gasp after my cock finally springs out from under the waistband of my pants, and for a few seconds you’re gone, pulling off our clothes at a furious speed until I’m in nothing but my underwear. I can feel you naked behind me, nuzzling your cock further into the dip between my cheeks, back and forth, until you feel the tight and encompassing warmth on either side. I feel wholly open, legs splayed out, cheeks spread beneath the size of your dick, arms up and over my head, my cheek still pressed into the pillow, and I feel so safe. I’ve missed this so fucking much. My heart pounds into my throat. Finally, you flip me onto my back and immediately push my legs up and open, a delicious burn that I chase. You finally pull my cock out of my underwear and wrap a big warm hand around my leaking length and relief swells through me. It takes everything not to come right then. I’m nearly at Heaven’s Gate. I love you.

“So pink for me, so ready,” you breathe, small beads of sweat forming at you hairline. Like how I remember. _I love you,_ I think again desperately, begging your hand to move. _I want this._

I’m relishing in the burn of my thighs being pressed open by gravity, down on either side of me on the mattress. My eyes are blinking closed, content to lie here splayed open and let you do the work, something you’ve never done before, something I’d never even imagined. You’re flushed, working me quickly, every so often letting the fabric of my underwear rub up against me and make me shudder, and soon my boxers are being pulled off entirely. Finally, finally, I feel your big and pretty cock rub against mine. You rub it teasingly, up and down, before grabbing them both in one hand, your big steady warm soft hand, jerking them off together. I hear a couple strained and pleasured grunts from you before you move away, and that’s when I feel the tip of your cock pressing solidly and insistently against my opening. My eyelashes flutter and I immediately start clenching. I want this so fucking much. I love you so fucking much.

“You want that?” you ask breathily like you can read my thoughts, which you probably can. You’re holding your leaking cock and rubbing it slowly up and down my opening, circling, not fully going in, and I’m clenching on nothing, fighting the urge to wiggle down and fit myself on your cock myself if you don’t do it soon. My dick is resting up against my belly, flushed and hard, begging to be touched, leaking precome that, god, I see you lick at greedily, which only pumps out a little more. I reach to palm myself, give myself a few good strokes, and I’m dopey from pure sexual arousal. With my other hand I press a finger to my own perineum and the delicious pressure flutters my eyelashes, making me hum and clench again, before I cup my balls in the warmth of my hand and start to play with them. I kind of relish in the ache it gives me, and I’m twitching in my hand, swelling and hardening even more, my legs splayed open and near shaking with the desire to come. You, for your part, sound strained, grunting and hitching your breath as you watch me start to finger myself.

I mumble a word that you immediately catch, and you’re gone for only a couple seconds before coming back with that hidden bottle of lubricant in our bedside table.

“Need this?” you say, before squirting some onto your fingers and working my hole alongside me, both of our fingers now slippery and wet, pressing insistently in. I sigh in contentment and I get a second finger in, pushing up with two while your push down with one, and it results in an involuntary porn-star groan that I can’t even help and suddenly I’m desperate, frotting and humping against the air, my length pulsing, hard and flushed against my belly. I need you. You see this and smirk a little. “Ready?” you ask before quickly flipping me back onto my stomach again, trapping my aching cock between my hot body and the warm sheets. It’s all almost too much and I’m frantically trying to find relief against the mattress while you take out my fingers and replace them with three of your own, and I feel so open, so wanting, and I love it. Love you, I think idly. I hear you unwrapping a condom behind me.

And then all of a sudden your fingers are gone and your two big hands are on my bare cheeks instead, spreading them apart as far as they can go, and finally I feel you press your cock in, slowly, filling me up, spreading me even farther. I relish in the burn, feeling my lips turn absentmindedly up into a dopey grin. You push me onto my knees so I’m propped up in the air and my dick is out. My face gets smushed into the pillow.

“I love how much you want it,” you groan as you pull out slowly before pushing back in, jolting me forward with the force of it. I nearly come right then, my balls already tightening, feeling you so big and so far inside of me that you immediately brush against my prostate. I use my hand to start stroking my cock quickly beneath my belly, desperate for relief. You shove in a couple more times, erratically, like you can’t get enough, before you’re wrapping a hand around my belly, brushing against the tip of my cock, and you’re pulling me back, effectively sitting me down on your cock. I feel the size of it as I slip farther down, feel the way it spreads me, fills me up, nearly splits me open, resting snugly against my prostate. I can’t think straight, just dazed with pleasure, and finally I get a solid hand around my dick and start working quickly, frantically, eyes half-closed. You sit back, arms keeping you up behind you, and you watch my back curve and legs spread as I start to get close.

“Not yet,” you demand, before pushing up and watching your cock disappear even further into me. It’s a clear indication you want me to ride you, so I get off quickly and turn around so I can face you before grabbing your leaking cock and sitting back down on my big seat. I’m so reckless, I know. Desperate, flinging myself at you. I love it. You’ve maneuvered so you’re leaning back against the pillows, eyes half-lidded and dark, and you sit back and watch as I shamelessly start to ride your cock, because I’ve missed this so fucking much. You look like you can’t help it when your reach your hands to my bare ass again, squeezing hard and spreading the cheeks even further as I ride you, bouncing and bouncing, my hair flopping and falling into my eyes. I’m in bliss, wiggling as I bounce, making you groan loudly and slap my ass a little. I blurt a little precome onto your stomach and keep bouncing, loving the burn of my thighs, not thinking of anything but making sure your big dick hits my prostate every time. Soon my lips are falling into a small o, my eyes are scrunching, and you know I’m close so you let me bounce a couple more times before pulling me off.

“Not yet,” you say again, before pulling off the condom and pointing to your flushed cock. I don’t even think, humming and sucking and licking sloppily and quickly as I put you straight into my mouth and start to suck you off. My hums start to turn into groans and you hold my hair to settle me as you start to fuck up into my mouth, and I feel you nearly about to come when I start choking and gagging around your cock, my mouth wet and warm.

“I’m…” you stutter, and I just work with more enthusiasm, letting my tongue run along a vein on the underside of your cock, my lips stretched obscenely over your girth. I slide my lips up and now I’m tongueing at the head, and at this, you throw your head back and your hips jolt forward, and you pull my head down so that my nose is nearly hitting your belly. My throat works around your cock, and then suddenly you’re shooting your load, so much I can tell it nearly blows your mind, so much, thick and long streams, all of it going into my mouth, down my throat, with my lips still wrapped around your pulsing length. This is what I get off on. I love seeing you come. And I’m here, finally, at Heaven’s Gate. My eyes become dazed and unthinking, pleasantly happy and proud, and I lick you a few more times to work you through it. I pull off with a pop when you’re done, spit slicking my now cherry red lips, and you watch me sit there slumped and sleepy and proud with my ridiculously hard and leaking cock still sticking out insistently. You look sated and sleepy too but with a firm hand you reach for my neglected cock and you stroke, you do it the way I like, running the thumbnail along the slit, squeezing at the top, repeating and repeating until you have me mindlessly rutting into your hand. You watch as the flush in my cheeks rises, matching the flush of the head of my dick, and you can feel me near pulsing in your hand, so hard I’m whining for it, and then there’s a jolt when you change positions and suddenly your mouth is on me, licking like a kitten at the head. Your pillowy lips are so soft and then you start to hum, and that’s when my rhythm breaks and I immediately come, all of it blurting out at once and suddenly, dribbling over your mouth and face and fingers and dripping everywhere. You look up at me and your face looks completely fucked, your cheeks blushing and your smile lazy and droopy, your eyes half-closed. You’re beautiful and my cock is still in your hand and you’re working me through the aftershocks. With a long sloppy kiss at the tip of my dick you suck me clean and then lick your lips and come up to press another kiss onto my mouth, slow and open and fucking obscene, and I’m just mumbling something that sounds like contentment.

“Why don’t you stay here tonight,” you say in a low whisper, before laying me back down onto the mattress, completely spent. You press small kisses along my neck and into the hollow of my throat and down my chest before pressing a small last one at tip of my dick, which twitches from oversensitivity, and maybe it’s a reminder. But then you pull us into a spoon and I’m on the outside like your little shell, keeping you close and tight and warm, and it’s so fucking nice. I missed you. I love you.

I love you.

I missed this so much, and even though you’ve just changed the rules on me, fucked me for the first time in a year, I love you.

Maybe I love you even more.

I fall asleep to the sound of your breathing, my eyes blinking slowly shut in the dark room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	18. Chapter 18

I do have a job, in case you were wondering. Like, I do actually wake up in time to catch the subway and head to my little cubicle. I feel like you think all I do is pine over you or love you or think about you or fuck you hard into my mattress. But that’s not true.

Like, I have a job.

February 2, 2015  
12:45 p.m.

It’s a sucky job. I hate this job. I really, truly, do.

Remember how happy I was when I got it? Yeah, me too. That was nice.

But I’ve since realized that editorial assistant includes zero editorial duties and about one hundred percent coffee run duties, and so I now officially fucking hate this magazine and every person who has ever stepped foot in this goddamned office building.

My therapist thinks I need to take it one day at a time. See how it goes. Don’t quit before I have another job lined up. She’s right.

Fuck her.

I wonder what she’s going to say tomorrow when I tell her I fucked you.

Fuck me.

I’m a sad little shit with a vindictive streak and a job he hates and a therapist who hates him, too. All I need is a balcony and a sunset and a cigarette and some sad indie music playing in the background before the credits roll.

I fucking hate being an adult.

And that’s how I find myself dialing my mom in a toilet stall at one in the afternoon.

“Mom?”

She’s laughing when she picks up, but when she hears my voice, it kind of stops. Good. I ruin everyone’s happiness. “Harry?” she asks. “Honey, is everything okay?” She’s worried, Zayn, because I never call. Text once a week, tell her everything’s fine, but that’s about it.

Well, everything is not fine. “Hi, Mom. How are you? I miss you.”

“I miss you too sweetie. I’m good, how are you? Is everything fine?”

I pause because I can’t get the fucking word out. “No, not really.” The words echo against the tiles, and my proceeding sob scares off whoever has just walked in the door. I’m alone.

“What’s wrong? Is it him? You-know-who?”

Sometimes I think my mom has the number of my therapist and they gossip about me. Either that, or she’s psychic. I snort at her effectively calling you Voldemort, by the way.

“Not everything in my life is about him, Mom,” I grumble. But she knows I’m lying. “Can you just…I don’t know, talk to me about something stupid for a little bit? I just want to hear your voice. Or are you busy? How’s Robin?”

“Sure, honey, no, I’m not busy. Of course. Robin’s great! He just did that charity shave thing. Did you see the pictures on Facebook?”

“Yeah, Mom. I did. That was cool. How’s Gemma?”

“Oh, Gemma! Have you heard the news? She got that research opportunity with her professor! That’s where she is right now, actually. At the lab. If she was here I’d have her talk to you but right now she’s trying to save the world.” My mom laughs into the phone, and I feel a prickling behind my eyes.

Homesickness.

“Is that the cancer research one? She got it?”

“She did! She misses you, Harry. We all miss you so much. If you ever want to come home, just for a weekend, let us know. I’ll be happy to pay for the plane ticket, honey.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’m coming home in the summer, remember? Not that far away.”

“I know, I know. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re stuck there in the city. You can come home whenever you want.”

“I’m not stuck here, Mom. I like it here.”

“I know you do, honey. Can I ask why you called?”

“It’s just. You know. Him, like you said. You know. The usual.”

She frowns, I can tell. “Don’t let him get under your skin again. You deserve better. You know that.”

“I know,” I say, even if I don’t. “I’m kind of, I’m definitely over him, but he’s back in town, and I, I know I’m over him but I still. I don’t know. I’m kind of like. Messing with him? And I know I shouldn’t be but I can’t, like, help it. I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“Do you want me to be honest, Harry?”

I contemplate saying no so I don’t have to hear it. “Yes.”

“I don’t think you’re over him, honey.”

“I’ll call in a couple weeks, okay?”

“Call us whenever you want to. We’re always here.”

“Yeah, Mom. Bye, I love you.”

“I love you too. Just call a little more often, okay?”

“Okay. Bye, Mom.”

It’s when I hang up that the first tears start coming — and maybe I got the rules of this game backward. Maybe I’m not going to be able to make you cry after all, because right now I’m crying and this is clearly not supposed to happen even though it is. You’re probably fucking ecstatic, wherever you are right now. Woo hoo. You got me in bed. Success.

And where are you, by the way? Still at your old job? Did you ever leave the city when you left me for him? Were you here the whole time?

And where are you living now? At a hotel or at a friend’s house? That pothead with the scraggly mustache and mousy hair that you consider your best friend since high school? Is that where you’re staying right now? On his couch? I don’t know why the image bothers me so much.

And fuck you and your fucking light up sneakers. I can’t believe I let you into my apartment with them. I can’t believe I fucked you last night. That wasn’t part of the plan, either, and you’re probably boasting about it to your gross little mustache friend right now. What the fuck. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck. It was part of the plan but only really in the abstract. I can’t believe I did it. That was so wrong.

You’re probably so fucking smug right now, aren’t you?

Did you just come back to me for a quick fuck? Did I misread everything? Why the fuck am I crying? Are you going to bother with seeing me again now that you got what you wanted? You still have my number, or at least you better have it. I don’t have yours because I deleted it but you better fucking have my number and you better fucking get in contact with me again otherwise I might finally crack. My shell might finally splinter all the way down the spine and break into a million pieces.

And then what will I do? Where will I take refuge? With you and mustache boy?

Or will I just let my shell break and then let myself wither and shrivel and die, exposed to the elements? Is that what’s going to happen? Is that what I’m leading myself toward? Because where did I think fucking you would lead to? Apparently a grimy bathroom stall while my break minutes burn up. My face is wet with salt water. I don’t know what I’m doing. Not anymore. I don’t think I ever did. Damn you.

When I leave the stall, I throw the golden cover of my fucking twisted rulebook into the trashcan.

Because with or without it, I’m fucking losing.

I’m losing.

And I hate my mom, because she’s right. Maybe this is why I never call.

And fuck. I never took those pictures of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	19. Chapter 19

“Why?”

This is how conversations with her always start.

February 3, 2015  
1:38 p.m.

“Why do you think you did that?”

“What do you think you got out of calling her?”

“What made you want to sleep with him?”

“What do you think that means?”

“Is there another reason you might have said that?”

“Does this maybe — and I’m just trying to help you work this out here — does this maybe have something to do with your dad? You know, with what happened when they got divorced?”

“What’s going on?”

And I never know. I never know how to fucking answer. I’m getting tired of opening myself up for examination every week, to be perfectly fucking honest, but even though I’m resenting her more and more, you really have to admire Meredith’s determination. I would have given up on myself by now.

Her couch is scratchy like always, the lights off, windows bright, a rare sunny day for the abysmal mess that is New York City in the winter.

I lay there, tired.

I’m so fucking tired.

I couldn’t sleep last night, because now you’ve been on the couch, so I've been sleeping on the floor, and now my muscles are aching and there’s a crick in my neck and lines of wrinkles are pressed into my skin from my clothes.

I’m so fucking tired.

And, Zayn, I have a question. You know that gash you left? The one in my thigh, the one that’s not fatal but really fucking hurts every time I walk? Well fuck you, Zayn, because every time I see you I’ve realized it opens right back up again and I’m starting to think it’s getting infected. Dark red and throbbing, pulsing at the beat of my heart, bleeding a little more and a little more and a little more until maybe it'll end when I’m finally out of blood. I kind of wish that’s how this worked.

But even the disinfectant Meredith pours almost too generously doesn’t really do anything to cure it. Not that I can see.

It’s been a day, Zayn. You still haven’t called.

Deja vu is creeping back in.

“Are you there, Harry? Are you listening to me? Our hour’s almost up. Is there anything you want to say?”

Meredith is restless in her chair, I can hear it, and I can hear the ticking of the clock, too, over the traffic. We’re both waiting, and I realize again how much more we have in common than I think.

I don’t answer her, just let the hour finish up in mostly silence. But this time I’m closer to saying something. The words are on the tip of my tongue when the minute hand reaches twelve.

I shut my mouth when it does. I grab my coat and leave her office quickly, mumbling a half-assed goodbye, feeling the disappointment wash like a flood out into the hall when I open the door. Waves of it hit my shoulders and run through my hair, pushing me down, the combined weight of mine and hers making me want to stumble.

Crumble is probably a better word. I’m already in a perpetual state of stumbling.

When I’m out on the street and waiting for a cab, my shoes slipping in the bits of snow that haven’t been cleared away, I pull out my phone.

Unlock it, open the contacts, and scroll. I do this five times. A little game, I guess, because that’s all I can center my life around. Games. They keep me sane and also drive me to the brink.

I used to do this when you were gone, but I never saw it through. If I landed on your name on one of my five scrolls, I would call you. Text you, whatever. Because I lied; I never deleted your name. Just put it under another name which I tried to forget. But I never actually did forget, because I'm a little fuck who was never able to stop thinking about you, so I start scrolling.

Russian roulette, just like keeping the door unlocked, even though I never let myself pull the trigger.

The cab comes just as I land on your name.

I’m a fucking masochist I guess, because I feel the skin of my thigh ripping open as the bullet finally shoots.

The blood begins to pour as I start typing a new message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!
> 
> edit: so in literally in the last chapter i said harry didnt have his number anymore and i didn't explain my mental reasoning behind that and then in this chapter harry clearly does have his number and i just realized how confusing that came across so i went back and clarified that point. bc i am dumb. ok


	20. Chapter 20

_**Zayn** _

Danny’s always gone during the day. The one you always used to call mustache boy. I don’t even think you know his name.

I’d tell you about him, but I always saw your eyes glaze over when I tried to start, like you’re not really listening but you’re too polite to say so, so I never did.

February 4, 2015  
1:22 p.m.

He’s a great artist. You think I’m good, but he’s fucking great. A lot better than me. I get my shit in galleries sometimes but he does it everywhere. On the walls. Train tracks, bridges. It’s beautiful and wild and a splattering explosion of thought because art shouldn’t be in a frame or on a canvas. That’s what he says. And he’s right.

You’d like him, I think, if you ever met him.

His apartment is dark, small, in the Bronx. It smells like weed, which is just as much my fault as it is his. And as much as it feels like a safe haven, it’s really not all that safe.

We always keep the door locked here.

Multiple ways. I bought an extra padlock when I came to stay, because I grew up in a place like this and I know you need multiple locks and you never keep all of them locked because that way when someone tries to break in they’re always unlocking one lock and locking another.

It works.

Other than that, the Bronx are actually kind of nice. There’s a park down the street that I like walking to during the day when I have nothing to do. There’s a laundromat around the corner that I like to sit and people-watch in sometimes, when I have nothing to do. There are interesting homes and broken down buildings that I like to look at from the roof of his apartment building, when I have nothing to do.

Maybe that’s why I’m obsessing over you, Harry.

I never fucking have anything to do.

It’s cloudy today, threatening to rain, so I can’t go to the park. The only other thing I’m thinking about is you.

And I have a lot of free time to think about you because I’m always here, watching television on his couch, never getting dressed, letting my stubble grow thick, letting myself become soft with how much exercise I’m not getting, letting my lungs darken with every cigarette I light up.

When I was with Michael at least I had a job, one to pass the time, one I didn’t really care about but at least it passed the fucking time. Gave me a false sense of purpose. You don’t know how important jobs are until you don’t have one. I lost mine a week or two ago, out of the blue. You always think they’re keeping you back, wasting the time you’d use to be more productive, to finally write that novel you always wanted to write, to travel to the places you always wanted to travel to, but really that’s so fucking backwards, you know? Jobs are really the only thing keeping you going. They’re the only thing keeping you believing that you’re going somewhere, or that you could be.

But then you lose your job and your realize that all your interests are not enough to pass the time, actually. And that you need money to do them.

I used to have a job. But that place folded and they let me go with three months pay but no job.

I need a fucking job.

I’m waiting for you to come over. My heart beats a little uncomfortably fast every time I think of you seeing me like this, because so far I’ve been doing a good job of looking like I’m at least some shade of stable. I’ve been doing a good job of keeping up some sort of pretense, of holding tight to the rope attached to that dumb fucking mysterious curtain I always pull down whenever I don’t want people to see me.

The curtain could look like anything, you know? You never know what it is, so it makes it so much harder to lift it. Maybe my hood when I’m walking down the street, a clean shave when I’m applying for a job, an expensive peacoat when I’m with you. I didn’t wear it Friday because fuck, I’m trying. I’m trying to lift that curtain. Let go of the rope.

You used to be behind that curtain with me, but now you’re on the other side, and I have to work to pull the heavy curtains back up for you.

I don’t want you to see me like this because it gets rid of all the mystery, and I’m afraid you’ll see me, exposed, and run in the other direction because this isn’t how you remember me, jobless and lame and basically undesirable.

I have to let it happen.

Let you see how I live when you’re not here. What I’m doing when I’m not with you, not chasing you down subways or sharing your bed or meeting you at The Green Dragon. I’m a fucking loser with no job who needs a kick in the ass but all that ever seems to do is knock me over into the dirt, and I don’t really mind the smell of dirt, to be honest, so I stay there and let myself rot.

Stuck on that fucking path again. Except this time it’s more literal, and I’m starting to figure out that the monsters lurking in the dark, the ones of envy and suppressed anger and absolute truth, are finally coming into the sunlight.

And I see their shape, and they look just like us.

I can’t believe you still have my number.

I almost shit myself when I saw your name on my screen. I never thought that would happen again. I'd always kind of hoped you would call or text but deeper down I always just assumed you deleted my number, because that would have made sense after what I did to you. I've been running over it in my mind since Saturday morning and I didn't know what to do to see you again or how to talk to you again or if you even wanted to see me again and what the fuck kind of a mess did I get us into and my brain was still a frazzled disaster from that fucking euphoric sex we had so I couldn't even think straight and then yesterday there you are, on my screen, your small typed name asking if we can meet. There are still heart emojis by your name the way you typed it in when we first started dating. I never got rid of those. I love those.

I love you.

You’re coming at six. We’re going to dinner, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe we’re going to talk.

When you knock on the door, I leave my peacoat in the closet.

But the door locks behind me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!
> 
> oh dear oh dear the next chapter might be them trying to be honest with each other for the first time in 200 years???? i do not know
> 
> also thank you so much for all of the positive feedback i don't know quite what to do with it and i am truly overwhelmed and of course still fighting my duMB writers block but you don't actually know how wonderful all da feedback is I'm actually going to cry thank you bye


	21. Chapter 21

My writer’s block is finally fucking back in full force.

I can’t write.

February 4, 2015  
5:58 p.m.

I was so close to climbing out of this fucking bottomless pit. My fingers were curled around the edge, clutching at dirt, grabbing onto mud, and I was almost there. Sunlight was hitting my face. But then a double of myself came along out of nowhere and fucking stepped on my fingers, hard, crunched them into the dirt, and now I’m losing my grasp and I’m falling.

I’m falling so fucking fast.

Maybe it’s because I’ve come to the climax of our little romance, where I’m finally supposed to tell you everything, but I can’t get myself to do it because I’m emotionally still a child. I’m blocking the more complex realizations, trying to keep things simple — your fault, not mine — and I can’t tell you everything because I don’t even know everything yet. It’s all blocked up inside me. Maybe when I explode is when I crack my fucking maladaptive shell and tell you everything. When everything comes out like the best and most relieving shit after nearly three months of constipation.

Maybe I can’t write because I know just how unoriginal our little romance is. How anticlimactic this supposedly so climactic climax is going to be, you know? Because we’re just people with boyfriend issues. That’s it. Why do people read this shit? Why do I read this shit? Why do we live for this shit?

There are people with worse situations in the world, people who need to be heard. A fucking romance isn’t something that needs to be heard. Even people who’ve gone through the same thing as us before and who’ve come out on the other side — they’ve already been heard. There are novels about it already. We’re not important. We’re nothing, really. We’re so fucking unimportant.

So why even write about it, right? What’s it going to bring me? I’m just as fucking crazy and legitimately insane as I was when I started this fucking journal. I’ve gotten nowhere.

I’m falling, Zayn. I’m falling and the air is flying past me but I’m not going anywhere, stuck in place, in the dark, lost. I’m still stuck in the mud in that car and I’m still pushing down on the accelerator too hard, too often, too much. I’m driving myself to nowhere still, going more insane every day.

Like that sensory experiment they did in the 60s, remember? We took that Developmental Psychology class together and we learned about it. Where they put you in a soundproof glass box filled with salt water so that you’re floating without even trying and the water is the exact temperature of your body and it’s completely dark. You can’t see, you can’t hear, you can’t feel.

You’re completely alone. And then, after a while, your body starts to hallucinate.

You start to mistake your neural movements for noise. Your body turns in on itself, paranoid because there can’t just be _nothing,_ and you start to go insane. A little bit. At least until the experiment ends.

Right now I’m in the experiment, Zayn. And I don’t know when it ends. I don’t know when the scientists will come out and flick on the lights and tell me good job, here’s your compensation of twenty dollars for participating in our study. I don’t know where I am anymore. I’m jittery and nervous and mistaking everything as noise. Everything I hear is a buzz. I can’t get the words out onto paper, because I can’t hear them. I can’t see them. I don’t know where they are.

I’m falling.

But you know what, Zayn? I’m going to close my eyes this time, I think.

I’m going to enjoy the ride, even though we never really liked roller coasters.

I’m going to open my eyes in the dark and let my rabbit legs go limp for once, let the air rush past me and move me however it wants. It’s time to do that, I think.

God, I hate this.

Fucking writer’s block.

I hate second guessing myself. I hate this.

But anyway, I’m taking you to dinner tonight.

I’m pacing back and forth outside the door to your apartment right now. It’s a narrow hallway and not very conducive to pacing back and forth but I’m doing it anyway. The floor is concrete under the carpet, I can feel it, and the lights are bright and flourescent. The elevator I came up in looked industrial, like this building wasn’t originally meant to be lived in, and maybe it wasn’t. The doors opened vertically, not even really doors but more like gates, and I saw the elevator shaft as I made my way up. It was an unnerving ride.

This place is unnerving. Like it’s not meant for us. Not for people.

But now I’m here, outside your door. Where you live.

I knew you were living with mustache boy. Where is he? If I knock on the door right now will he be the one to answer? I never liked him. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m a narrow-minded little shit, I guess. Probably.

Breathe. Breathe.

And then I knock on your door.

My stupid fucking crushed fingers rap too quickly, anxious and without a rhythm, and that’s ironic because we used to have a rhythm, remember that? We used to coexist, Zayn. I want that back. I think I just want that back. You’re a horrible person and I’m clinically messed up, but I still want us back. I think.

I hear movement behind the door, someone getting up. I feel so jittery, goddamnit, and my camera is heavy around my neck, weighing me down like that typewriter always did, and maybe bringing it here was a wrong move because maybe we shouldn’t have pictures. Maybe you should just stay in my mind or right in front of me but maybe you shouldn’t stay in pictures.

Maybe the promise of permanence was never our strong suit.

I hide it under my coat.

And then there’s several sounds of multiple locks sliding into place, and then you open the door. You’re surprised to see me standing there. You blink your eyes.

It’s a little bit ridiculous because why the fuck are you always so surprised to see me, Zayn? Do you think I’m a fucking ghost who doesn’t actually exist outside of our little bubble? Stop looking at me like that. You knew I was coming. I texted you. You gave me your address. I’m right here. Standing right in front of you. Stop that.

You made me take a cab all the way to the Bronx to get to you. Do you know how far that is from my place? Fucking far, so stop looking at me like that. I’m making my effort. I’m fucking trying so hard right now. Now you make yours.

“Hi,” you say. You pretend to be casual.

I struggle to not roll my eyes.

Maybe the more I realize I’ll never get over you, the less patience I have for you. I don’t know why. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. But this is probably why old married couples bicker. You know you’re never getting away from them and you know you’ll never want to, and that feeling of voluntarily chaining yourself to someone else can drive you mad.

My heart jumps at the thought of us being an old married couple.

I feel so jittery, so staccato, jumping back and forth. Like I’m sure of what I’m doing and then I forget my aim entirely. And then, no, I’m sure again. And then I backtrack and second guess myself again. Just like writer’s block. I’m backspacing when I know I probably shouldn’t be because I don’t know what’s good.

I hate this.

Why did I come here again? Why did I text you to meet? Why am I letting this happen, again and again, like a cycle? Why do I want to try this with you again, for real this time, not a game?

Why? Why why why why why? I forget.

I feel like an addict who needs a cigarette. I can’t get my thoughts straight.

I clear my throat.

“You ready?”

Because I have a plan. I have to remember that. Stop spiraling out of control in your own head and tell you how I’m feeling. That’s the plan. It’s a good plan, I think. Solid. Okay. Stop being an emotional child and figure everything out and then tell you. That’s the thing that I came here to do and for the love of God I’m going to do it. Because I can’t stand any more therapist appointments. I can’t stand waves of disappointment every time I leave Meredith’s office.

I can’t stand the echo I used to live in when you were gone.

I don’t want that again.

Maybe we’re destined to destroy each other, Zayn, but I’ve decided. I’ll take that over nothingness. I’ll take that over that fucking haunted empty echo I lived in when you left.

And you know what you told me at the end of that Development Psychology class, the day we finished that unit about why babies attach so strongly to their mothers? That despite all the scientific experiments that have explained it, the in utero sound waves and amniotic fluid familiarity and all that shit, people just need love. That’s what you said. That people need love and they’ll do anything to get it. Irrational or ridiculous. That it’s an amazing thing how much people need love.

That’s what you said. And you know what? Maybe you’re right.

You’re right.

I need love, and I think I need love from you for a stupid fucking reason that I don’t understand. And love doesn’t thrive when you try to control it. It’s not a game. I can’t press X a bunch of times and beat my fear of abandonment or your infidelity and get to the next level. I realize that. So enough with the games, is what I’ve decided. There are no instructions anyway; that golden rule book never even existed. Because in a game you get hurt and your life supply runs low but then you beat a level and all your injuries disappear, and you’re at 100% again.

But right now, even though I’m at the start of the next level, the gash in my leg from the last level is still bleeding all over the carpet. Injuries like that don’t just go away.

Except the carpet has already been stained from piss and soda and maybe real blood and other people’s heartbreaks, so my blood mixes in unobtrusively. Sinks into the fibers, because I think it finally found its place here. On the ground, my blood mixing in with the dirt. But blood eventually dries. Everyone’s blood dries eventually. And it dries into solid foundations and then people build off of them. Blood is a good thing, if you think about it. We build cities on top of bloodshed, on top of messes.

My blood is running down my pants leg. I’m sure you can see it.

“Yeah,” you tell me. “Let me get my coat.”

I watch as you run inside to grab a hoodie even though it’s fucking freezing out, and I think for a second that you are never going to be capable of change. I don’t know why I’m trying so hard. What the fuck, right?

I’m so jittery. My thoughts are so staccato.

I think I love you.

I know I do. That’s the whole point.

“Where are we going?” you ask me when we get into the cab, the one I paid extra for so that it stayed out on the street while I got you because I didn’t want to have to call another and wait with you in mustache boy’s apartment. I don’t know if I could handle that.

“You’ll know it,” I say.

I’m taking you to that restaurant. The one I always used to find myself in front of on Mondays, the one I’m not even sure you like anymore, with the fig and duck pizza. I don’t know what made me choose it.

I could have chosen The Green Dragon. That would have been really writerly of me. But I didn’t, because I’m an idiot and don’t pay attention to things like recurring motifs in real world situations.

I could have picked a restaurant closer to here so that we wouldn’t have to drive so long, but again. I am an idiot. So I didn’t do that. Sorry. I just picked a random restaurant because in the real world that’s just how things go. You pick the random restaurant.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m saying.

I look at you sitting next to me in the cab and god, I’m nervous. I don’t know why. It’s just you.

It’s just you.

And you’re so beautiful.

It’s weird to see you sitting next to me like this, in the cab, the middle seat between us. You’re looking at me like you can see right through me, and maybe you can. Those cartoon eyes on that red sweater of yours are all trained on me. You’re not even wearing the red sweater. I’m just thinking about it.

And now I’m thinking of you in metaphors.

You are bigger than life, a city I can’t breach the borders of.

You’re a Michelangelo masterpiece that I can’t see the shape of yet because it’s still hidden in the block of marble. Which is maybe my fault. Maybe I need to chip away the marble to get to you. Maybe I put the marble there. That doesn’t even make sense. Fucking writer’s block.

Maybe I’m sitting in a car with a hurricane, an infinite everything in this little space that’s sucking the air out of my lungs so I can’t even speak. How am I fitting in here with you? You’re a hurricane.

You’re so many things. I don’t know. Suddenly my mind thinks of snow as we pass a big pile of it on the side of the street, slowly melting and dripping into the gutters. Maybe you’re snow. Cold and beautiful and killing me. I can be the grass. The dirt, the mess, the blood.

Maybe.

Your hazel eyes are looking out the window now because we haven’t talked for a while and your hair is tucked behind your ear, something I never thought I’d see because you always said you’d never grow it long. Your hoodie is zipped up and I can’t stand the fucking sight of you, Zayn. It hurts my eyes.

You’re so fucking beautiful. The cloudy light hits your profile through the car window, and yes, I think. I think I would fall in love with your silhouette.

You are so fucking beautiful, Zayn Malik.

We get a table in the back.

You don’t say much when we sit down and get our menus. You’re drawing little shapes into the condensation of your water glass. “How are you?” That’s what you start with.

This place was always small, cramped and usually overcrowded, but today there’s a little more space. The din of other people isn’t as overwhelming.

I’m about to say good.

“God fucking awful,” I say, and I say it while I’m looking toward the kitchen, not at you. I hear the clanging of pots and pans, chefs yelling. A lot of work goes into making restaurant style duck pizza, I guess. “I’m fucking awful. Life is an awful thing to have to deal with.”

And that’s the first chip away at my shell.

You look up, and I see something flicker in your eyes, just like how it happens in bad novels, and at the same time I feel something small change inside me, exactly how it happens in the worst novels.

“Awful?” you repeat, and you’re genuinely concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Too many people have asked me that.”

I immediately want to stick my finger down my throat and make myself vomit because I fucking say that out loud. A badly scripted line from a romantic comedy. A line that usually sounds flippant and flirtatious and mysterious, but really I’m just talking to you with my normal voice, so it just sounds lame.

Cliche.

That’s how this conversation is going, apparently, because I’m tired and there is no game and I’m still sleeping on the floor, and sometimes cliches are just easier.

I want to press the pause button and back up a few seconds so I don’t say that out loud, but we’re not in a video game. We’re not. This isn’t my game. I didn’t make it. I’m not the programmer or the character. And that cliff I’m about to fall down — the one you’re walking me toward with your death ray on my throat — is just virtual. It’s not really there.

There’s nothing there.

Sometimes, cliches are just easier.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you messed me up so bad I need a therapist now.” I laugh like an idiot. “I go to a therapist every Tuesday. So thanks for that. And also fuck you. I just wanted to get that out there.”

I don’t even say that cruelly; I sound like I’m talking about the weather. Something matter of fact. Not to be argued with or offended by because it’s just a fact. Fuck you.

“Fuck me?” you say.

“Yeah. Also I still love you, obviously, so that’s a thing. I’m dealing with it.”

“You love me?”

“Will you stop responding to me in questions? Yes, Zayn. I do.”

“You do?”

I see the way you sit straighter up in your chair. This is so weird. This is so weird. My shell is starting to crumble and I feel raw. You can see me, kind of, almost. I’m being honest I think. I feel like that episode of Spongebob where Mr. Krabs starts to molt his crab shell and he turns into a pink squishy lump. Right now I feel like that pink squishy lump. Anything you do could hurt me right now, so I kind of hope you choose your words carefully.

“Sorry,” you tell me. “Okay, no questions.”

“Fuck you.” I just had to say it again.

“What?”

“Sorry. Fuck you. God, that feels good.”

You stare at me, but I know it’s because I’m thawing. My shell is cracking. I’m pink and squishy, like Mr. Krabs, and you’re starting to see me again. Maybe I’m the Michelangelo statue trapped in marble and maybe I’m also Michelangelo, chiseling myself out.

I’m an artist and the masterpiece. How’s that for self love, Meredith?

“Fuck you,” I say again, and this time I crack a stupid smile. “Fuck you!”

“Harry, there are people here,” you say in a low voice, a little embarrassed. But not really. I can see you smiling a little, too. I hate that smile because it’s what killed me but I also love it at the same time. “Maybe don’t shout it at least.”

I cut you off.

“FUCK you! Fuck you!”

I think I might have actually gone insane. Finally, finally, gone. It’s a lot more freeing than I would have thought.

“Fuck you for leaving me,” I start, and I see you brace yourself, “and for making me go crazy and fuck you for making me take a cab all the way to the fucking Bronx and back to tell you that! And fuck you for your dumb ass boots which are still in my apartment by the way, and fuck you for watching The Avengers without me that one time because I know you did and fuck you for just being yourself in general. And fuck that stupid typewriter because I do actually want you to pay me back for that. That was so fucking expensive. And fuck you for making me sad. That was really mean. You shouldn’t make people sad.” I take a breath. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll probably think of some other things in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

The waitress comes up to our table and I guess my voice was a little louder than I thought it was because she’s trying to hide her smirk. It’s so funny how our entire world of hurt will just be a funny story she tells her friends in a couple hours and then forgets. We're so unimportant. Just people with boyfriend issues. “Are you two ready to order?” she asks.

“Yeah, I think so. We’ll have the duck and fig pizza.”

“The duck and fig? I’m sorry — we don’t actually make that anymore.”

“What?”

I’m going to ask her why, but then she answers my question, something about new managers.

“Well, the margarita is good then. Thank you.”

“To share?”

I look at you, Zayn, and you nod.

“To share.”

When she leaves, I look at you again.

“One more time?” I say.

You nod again like you deserve it.

“Fuck you.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

I think it’s the most we’ve talked in a year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took forever to post because my friends are drunken losers that i had to take care of all weekend (like holding their hair back while they puked and putting them to bed and generally being a GREAT friend) and also bc writers block which may be partly due to the fact that within the space of a few days a lot more ppl started reading this story and it freaked me out
> 
> so yeah i apologize
> 
> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	22. Chapter 22

_**Zayn** _

I wonder what would have happened if.

If something. I don’t know.

I just always wonder that.

February 9, 2015  
12:15 a.m.

If I wouldn’t have kept getting annoyed at the fact that you always needed to wear flip flops in the shower. Even during our shower sex.

If you hadn’t wanted a farm. If I hadn’t known that you had wanted farm and if I hadn’t let the guilt that you were living in the city with me instead wear me down. If I hadn’t resented you for the invisible backpack of guilt that that put on me, the one I never let myself take off.

Maybe I do know what it feels like to be white sometimes. Carrying around a weight of invisible, intangible guilt that you do nothing about and try to forget you have. It makes you resent the people you feel guilty about because you don’t know what to do and so you do nothing. And doing nothing only makes the guilt harder to carry. And a cycle of bad thoughts begins.

Sometimes I wonder if those little annoyances are what made me look for someone else.

Little annoyances that weren’t even annoyances, really. They were just things that you did. But we never really had problems, you know? We always just got each other.

But after a few years, if we were normal, there should start to be problems that we would have to work through. I expected that. I was prepared for that.

But there were no problems. We were in such a good place.

That couldn’t possibly last.

And so suddenly I woke up one morning and saw you still asleep next to me, spread out all over the bed like you always were, and you were drooling like you always did, and it was like the honeymoon music stopped in my head. I suddenly couldn’t stand the typewriter at the end of the bed, the one that you bought. I couldn’t stand the mess of papers you always left on the kitchen table. I couldn’t stand the off white color of our bed that didn’t quite match the walls. I couldn’t stand the books all over the place, the way some would drop from the closet and fall into my face whenever I went for a spare towel. I couldn’t stand the way you were growing your hair out. I couldn’t stand the way you sometimes sucked my lip too hard when we kissed. I couldn’t stand you all of a sudden, even though nothing had even changed.

It was like I came up out of the water and looked down and saw us still under the surface drowning. Maybe we weren’t drowning and we were just swimming and we were fine, but I thought we were drowning. The water distorted us and that’s what I saw, so I dove down to pull us back out of the water. We couldn’t last like that forever, under water. We needed to take a breath eventually. But for me, that breath turned into Michael.

I think I was so amazed that we were so good for each other that I made us stumble so that we weren’t good anymore. I think that’s what I did.

But I don’t know. I always strive to be perfect. That perfect person that I’ll never really be. I hate that word, perfect. It doesn’t mean anything. But I almost got it with you, almost perfection, but I didn’t realize that perfection doesn’t mean stability. You don’t reach it like a holy land. You don’t see it while congratulatory music plays and you live out the rest of your days being fed grapes by the ocean. You only know you’ve reached it when you become so uncomfortable with how well things are going that you make yourself imperfect again.

Because people are more comfortable being imperfect. Having faults is a more comfortable existence. With you, we were too good for too long, and after a while, it got uncomfortable.

And so I invented problems.

You were too careless, you didn’t exercise enough, you typed too forcefully on your computer. You left your things in a mess but always put my shoes in the closet. You dusted up after me but not after yourself. I didn't like the smell of the shampoo you kept buying.

Stupid shit.

And I tried to tell you what was actually bothering me, but I could never get my words out. You know that I never can. My brain kind of just fails on me and kind of puts a hundred different words in my head at once. And I get stuck and I can’t, like, convert. What I’m thinking. And I’m working on it, and that doesn’t happen all the time now, but still. I couldn’t tell you.

If I could, things wouldn’t be like this. Me on Danny’s couch, you on yours, some weird rift still between us. We were just becoming good again — in the grit of things now, I think that’s what I called it — but we’re not. We’re actually not. We’re still on the edge. Trying to get somewhere. I see that.

I kind of wish I was like you, Harry. I wish I could break open like you did on Wednesday and tell you everything. You were always good at that. You could always tell me what was on your mind so easily, like it came naturally to you. I loved listening to you. I loved the way I could hear the way your brain worked through the things you said. You were an open book and my favorite to read. That’s what made me fall in love with you, I think. And when I left you, it was almost like I flipped you closed. You weren’t an open book anymore. That’s my fault. But I think you’ve figured out how to open yourself back up again.

I tried that when I came over to your apartment for the second time, remember? When we watched The Avengers, and I told you his name. Michael. But then I couldn’t get the rest out, and then at dinner on Wednesday I stumbled through my words and didn’t really explain myself. But I got a little further this time. I told you how we met. You didn’t mind when I tripped over my words. You let me fall and you watched me pick myself up because you know what I’m like.

I think you saw me getting better at it. Kind of. A little bit. Slowly.

But maybe — I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m trying to say anymore but maybe what I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t have gotten better at trying to tell you what I’m thinking if I hadn’t left you in the first place and if I hadn’t been dumped two months later.

I’m not trying to spin cheating as a good thing; it’s not. I know. I know. But does what I’m saying make sense?

Like, I don’t know. Something about leaving you felt like I was throwing off that old backpack of guilt but immediately putting on a different one when I got with Michael. And I thought the new one was lighter but really it was just a different backpack. Just as heavy.

And eventually that new backpack got heavy enough and hard enough to carry that, when Michael left, I decided to hell with fucking backpacks. That’s what made me grow up. Enough of this fucking self-imposed weight dragging me down. I can’t do it anymore.

Because backpacks are for children and I’m an adult now and it’s time for me to shed it.

I know that doesn’t make sense. But if I want to get rid of that backpack of guilt once and for all, I need to start unpacking it.

So.

I met Michael on a Monday.

You were at the fair trade store and I was between jobs just like I am now. Michael and I both happened to go into the same online magazine startup company to ask about the application process at the same time.

He was from the suburbs around Portland just like I was, but not really the suburbs. Not really. I always told you I was from the suburbs, Harry, but really I was from the bad part. Or at least the parts where I probably never would have seen nice white people like you at night, because it’s “scary” there. Dangerous.

I know you wouldn’t care about where I came from but I knew your mother would and even though she’s sweet, she’d never want you to be with me if she’d known what kind of neighborhood I grew up in. And I know you’re close with your mom, because you used to call her all the time in college. You called her every other day. You listened to everything she said and followed it like it was your Bible. And I knew you wouldn’t care where I came from but you also might have. You never liked Danny.

And since I never really told you where I grew up, you never really knew that part of me, I guess. The part of me that was the kid who had to get the free lunches at school. The part of me that always locked half the locks on my door so burglars are always locking one and unlocking the other and can’t get in. The part of me that still keeps my hood up when I’m walking down the street except for when I see a policeman.

That’s one of the first things I found out about him. That Michael grew up exactly the same way I did. He was so honest about it. He’d been cuffed before, just like I had, and wrongly. Just like I had. Suspicion of drugs. He wrote that on the application for the job. It was weird to me. I always hid that side, but Michael showed it to me like he wasn’t embarrassed. I don’t think he was.

I was wearing my light up sneakers and a striped hoodie when I met him at the receptionist’s desk. Not the best attire for inquiring about a job opening, I know, but I never cared about how I dressed. And you didn’t care either, and I loved you for it.

And then I saw Michael that day and I suddenly started caring. He was tall and he had strong shoulders. He had beautiful, sharp, delicate dark brown eyes. His skin was so dark and smooth and the composition of his cheekbones looked like they were built with the specific goal of slicing your heart in two before you’d even met him.

He was beautiful. And he was dressed nicely, a peacoat and suede shoes.

Michael was cold and sharp and unapologetic. I’d never been around that before, not really. You were always warm, pale, soft, lovely, but Michael was thrilling. When I met you in that discussion room I got butterflies and I couldn’t look at you, but with Michael I got butterflies because I couldn’t stop staring at him. He was like that painting in the MOMA that I stopped and looked at for twenty full minutes once before you pulled me away to the gift shop.

I’m just trying to be honest.

I’m sorry.

And then he told me that he’d just moved to the city from school in Canada, and without even thinking I offered to show him around.

That’s how it started.

I’m sorry. You know that. I think I’ve said it enough now that it won’t make a difference to you anymore and it’s just white noise and I think I’ll also never say it enough, but I’m done saying it now.

Because now I’m midway through explaining this all to you as I sit on your couch while you’re trying to stay composed, and the sun isn’t shining and it’s dark in here, the snow freezing into ice on the windowpane, and this is all I can do. I’m trying. I’m trying.

For now, that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!
> 
> ALSO fun fact
> 
> the line "My brain kind of just fails on me and kind of puts a hundred different words in my head at once." is a direct quote from the real life zayn from the where we are movie interview


	23. Chapter 23

_"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive."_   
_— James Baldwin_

Valentine’s Day is Saturday. I just remembered that.

February 12, 2015  
2:57 a.m.

I could go into a whole rant about it, the same spewed out shit that every cynical person says about how it’s all a corporate ruse to make us feel bad about ourselves and pour money into the card industry by buying sentimental greetings for people we won’t care about in a year, but I’m not going to do that.

I’m not.

I’m really not. I won’t.

I swear.

Fucking Valentine's Day. A pointless holiday. And this is seriously unfortunate timing, too, so congratulations, Zayn! You said you wanted problems and now you’ve got one.

Fucking Valentine’s Day.

Go big or go home, I’m going to say. You better do something big or go home. But that’s a weird saying, kind of. It doesn’t make sense.

Because I don’t really know what home is supposed to mean, you know? Where you go if you don’t go big. Where you return at the end of a long day if you fail. Is it like a mental thing or a real, physical place? Because once you leave your childhood home and a lot of distracting shit starts happening in your life, suddenly you look back and realize that home stops existing. That it’s a lot more abstract a concept than the address you always wrote on permission slips in elementary school. You don’t know where you go when you fail anymore. Maybe the saying should be go big or get lost.

But you should do something, I think, Zayn. That’s the point of this.

We should do something. Remember our first Valentine’s Day together? You sent yourself a candy gram of Hershey kisses because you thought it would be funny and because we weren’t fucking Facebook official yet. That was important for some reason. We weren’t Facebook official yet. And you held it up to me while I was writing my paper on gender roles and you asked me if you could give me a kiss. I was so happy. Not because it was sweet or even because I liked chocolate — Nestle is better, we mutually agreed on this early on because otherwise I never would have given you the time of day probably — but because I was finally rubbing off on you. My bad humor. It was fucking adorable and I smiled like an idiot and you smiled in that bright way I love even though we were both deep and shitty writers who didn’t think we were capable of being adorable back then.

You are so beautiful when you laugh. You don’t laugh enough.

Our second Valentine’s Day we had sex. In your dorm room, stifled and frantic and with a bed so small I rolled off of it a couple times. We didn’t exchange gifts because we were shunning materialism, I think. It was during that phase. When you wore all black and started wearing your Doc Martens.

Anyway. That’s not important but what is is that Valentine’s Day is Saturday. I don’t know what we are anymore, but it’s on my mind.

I’m trying to go to sleep right now, and things are looking up because I’m in the bed again, but it’s still on my mind.

I’m trying to close my eyes. I can’t. The ceiling is boring when you’ve been looking at it for two hours.

Oh, and Zayn. That quote? The one up there? That’s why I have the books. That’s why they’re always in the closet or on the coffee table or falling all over the place. That’s the one thing you said that got on my fucking nerves. Everything else I could basically handle, I could even handle you calling my mother mildly racist and classist because you know what, you might not be wrong, I wouldn’t know, but I couldn’t stand that for some reason. The thing you said about the books.

It’s spinning and building and souring in my mind into something much worse than it is. I’m trying to let that not happen. I’m trying, Zayn. It’s like milk going bad and I’m trying hard as possible to put it in the fridge and out sight before it spoils and stinks up the room. I swear I’m trying — just, I don’t know. I have a sensitive streak that I can’t seem to quash entirely. I’m a sensitive soul, just like you said. My therapist told me to take a break from you and breathe for a few days.

Meredith might as well have had popcorn in her hands when I finally told her what happened at the restaurant. It’s the most she’s heard me talk since we started our sessions.

I also told her what I thought about you when I saw you the first time at the subway station, and that’s when she told me to definitely take a few days’ break from you before I really do wrap my hands around your neck and squeeze.

She’s right. I know. I know. Love manifests itself in a lot of different ways and she says that sometimes love can manifest itself into thoughts of violence and I should confront those thoughts and not let them happen. That they’re natural but something to be controlled.

I told her that maybe I just have a fascination with your throat. She seemed unconvinced.

And then I got angry and told her that maybe I just have a fascination with your throat because I like to see you choke and that’s why I had sex with you in the first place, why I fucked your mouth when you blew me, because I love to see you incapable of breath, choking, running the line between writhing and arousal, comfort and suffering. I love to see you suffer.

I think that might have been a joke. I don’t know. Maybe I’m the sadist.

My sarcasm is too disgusting to tell sometimes, and I didn’t have enough time to figure out if I was being serious because Meredith told me our time was up midway through my sentence.

I think I freak her out sometimes.

But I offered you to stay with me when you told me you lost your job. I told her that, too. It fell out of my mouth before I realized it but I didn’t take it back, and I told her you said no at first but that sometimes circumstances like these are more important than our stupid fragile relationship problems getting in the way.

Because, you know, maybe this is home for you. Maybe you need this place, even if you don’t need me. I don’t know if you need me. We’ll figure that out. But maybe this is the place where you need to go when you fail. I don’t know.

Maybe this is us starting to work through things.

It’s weird how you never know for sure.

I got a promotion yesterday.

Officially not a paid intern anymore; I’m working my way up. I’ve got a real cubicle now, one with a real chair, and my first article is due tomorrow. Can you fucking believe that? Real deadlines. Real life fucking deadlines. It’s an online self-help relationship quiz in the spirit of Valentine's Day, which is the most delicious kind of irony I think, but I’m fucking writing it. It’s going to be the best fucking online self-help relationship quiz in the spirit of Valentine's Day that this magazine will ever have published. I’m working my way up, Zayn.

I’m working my way up.

You move back in tomorrow. Deja vu, I think, is creeping back in too.

But I don’t care. Not right now.

I close my eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my dumbass kind of boyfriend is going home on valentines day while i sit alone by myself in my dorm for the weekend so valentines day is on my mind. hence the chapter theme
> 
> fucking valentines day. a pointless holiday


	24. Chapter 24

_**Zayn** _

You help me with my things when I leave Danny’s place.

February 13, 2015  
12:20 p.m.

You met him for the first time today. Whatever I said Wednesday might have actually made a difference, because you’re so nice to him. It’s weird. You’re always nice, because that’s the polite thing to do and that’s what you were always taught, but this is genuine. I can tell the difference between your polite smile and your real smile and this was the real kind.

You shake his hand, and tell him your name, and he says hello and smirks because I’ve told him about you. He knows everything about you. He knows the way you drool on your pillow. He thinks I’m an idiot for letting you go. You don’t know anything about him, other than what you can see. Mousy hair, the mustache now a thicker beard, his shirt long and splattered with paint.

When I fit all my things into the back of the cab — it’s just a few shirts, pants, my computer, a bag of toiletries, and that huge and expensive razor — you tell me you like him. Danny’s a nice guy. You don’t even mention the permeating smell of weed that’s always on him, the smell that’s lingering in your clothes now.

I try to stop my laughter because I told Danny you were coming and I told him you usually didn’t like the smell of smoke and I think that’s why he started smoking from the minute he got up today. He’s a very protective person, actually. Like my older brother because he’s bigger and stronger even though I’m nearly a year older, and even though he thinks I’m an idiot for letting you go, he saw what a mess I’ve been the last few weeks. He knows it’s because I’ve been seeing you again. He’s just making sure.

You tell me you’ll help me with a job search when we starting driving back through the city. That the economy’s not as bad as it was a few years ago and that we can actually get jobs as writers now, that your promotion was really unexpected but it’s not as impossible as it would have been two years ago. It’s like a weird pep talk, something you’re latching onto because you don’t know what else to say, and obviously you don’t know what you’re doing. The cab is quiet besides the ads playing on the small screen, the white noise of traffic outside our little bubble. It’s almost quiet enough to hear your thoughts. Like they’re coming straight out of your ears, leaking from your brain, and slipping into mine. You’re thinking that you might have been stupid in asking me to come. I’m thinking it might have been stupid to accept.

When we get back to your place, or our place now, because there’s no way I’m staying here without paying half the rent, it’s weird.

It’s so weird. Like everything has reversed and moved us back three months and everything is exactly the same but different now. We’re trying to fit into the roles we left, slip back into our ghosts who are still occupying the apartment, but it’s not fitting just right. That shitty veil of metaphors that I use to dramatize my life with has fallen away. It's just you and me now.

I’m not sure where to drop my bags. The floor doesn’t feel like it’s mine. Everything I do seems obtrusive. I wait for you to tell me what to do, like a child on the first day of school, or a grandchild at their scary grandmother’s house.

I don’t know what to do here anymore.

“Well, make yourself at home.”

Oh.

I drop my bags on the floor, gentler than I probably would have before, because I don’t want to be rude. It’s quiet.

“Do you want lunch?”

“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Zayn.”

“I can make it.”

“Zayn.”

“Just a ham and cheese, then. Please.”

“Mustard?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Zayn.”

“Yes, please.”

“Anything else?”

“No, I’m good.”

“Zayn.”

“I really am. Thanks.”

And then you walk to the fridge and start pulling things out, and I sit down at the table. I feel awful. I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe I’m going to be sleeping here, coming back here at night and sharing the same space as you again. This place doesn’t feel mine anymore, even though it really, really does.

Sitting here waiting for you to come back with lunch is so familiar. This has happened so many times before.

I really ought to start making the sandwiches.

I ask you why you’re not at work, and you say you can start working at home now, even though you still have an office. It’s all on the computer anyway. All online. You can work wherever, but you have a piece due this afternoon.

“Oh,” I say. “That’s really great, Harry.”

I see the way your hands move, opening the bag, and it’s so familiar. I remember their feel on my skin. I want to touch you so badly, come up behind you and wrap my arms around you like I used to, hold your waist and hook my chin on your shoulder and rock us back and forth, but this isn’t my place anymore. I can’t do that. You’re in control now.

I think you knew you always were.

I love you, Harry.

I really ought to start making the sandwiches.

A few hours later, after the sun has set and you’ve written your piece — you were laughing while you wrote it but you wouldn’t tell me why — I start to think we’ve been in here for too long.

And that’s when you turn to look at me, your pretty soft green eyes blinking slowly. Your hair falls just a little into your face.

And it’s like the honeymoon music suddenly starts playing back up in my head again.

_I love you,_ I think, and it’s not just a thought. Out of nowhere it’s an inundating wave that I can’t suppress. _I want you_. It’s so strong that I’m caught off guard. A giant swell behind my back that’s pushing me toward you. _I fucking love you, Harry Styles. This is all I have ever wanted. I love you so fucking much. I am so happy I’m here. I know you’d tell me to not let my happiness be controlled by another person, that it’s not good in the long run, but I am so happy I’m here._

And that’s when you take my hand with that old brightness in your eyes, the kind that used to always be there, and it makes my heart feel like it stuck itself into an electric socket, because that’s the you I know.

That’s the you I know.

We nearly fall over ourselves running into the bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he surprised me with a teddy bear and chocolates literally the most cliche and sweetest valentines day gift of all time and it made me a happy little sap pls save me
> 
> too much about my life. ok
> 
> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	25. Chapter 25

February 13, 2014  
5:33 p.m.

**_Rules of Love, Valentine’s Day Edition_ **   
_By Harry Styles_

_1\. If your former flame comes back into your life, still in love with you and jobless, what do you do?_

_a) Tell them to make sure the door doesn’t hit their ass on the way out._   
_b) Show them empathy but tell them you’ve moved on with your life. You do yoga now; you’ve started gardening, and you’re sorry, but this is not your problem._   
_c) Take them back immediately and ask them to move in with you. And then have sex with them._

_If you chose A, you are an independent soul! You don’t need anyone else to feel whole._   
_If you chose B, you are a sensitive soul! You care about others, but the person that comes first is always yourself._   
_If you chose C, you are a romantic fool. And the world pities you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne :-)


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning of a little bit of explicitness just so y'all know
> 
> i need the lord
> 
> this took so long to write but it's so short??? wtf???

All I can think about is your body. My mind is on a 24 hour sex marathon.

February 14, 2015  
9:32 p.m.

The last time I had you here on this couch I was playing a game. I couldn’t really see you. I didn’t really know you were here.

But this is what it feels like to have you here and know it. Finally. Warm, smelling a little like cigarettes and weed, but mostly like that new shampoo I bought. You’re coming back into my world. I’m kind of counting down the minutes until I can get you naked again.

My head’s on your shoulder like it used to be, but I told you this was going to be weird. The in-between moments when we’re not having sex. When we’re just doing idle things together like digesting the dinner that you made me for Valentine’s Day while we watch the news.

That was weird.

I came back from the store — I didn’t buy you chocolates but I bought you a Snapple — and you were just at the stove, cooking something furiously, a small bead of sweat dripping off the pretty slope of your nose. You had on my ironic Kiss The Cook apron, the one with the hearts, and you were wearing those slippers that you had left in the closet. Nothing else, though. Just a small pair of boxers. Your dark hair was tied back in one of my hairbands. You looked so intense.

When you saw me walk in through the doorway your concentration cracked and you broke into an easy smile, the one I can’t get enough of, the one where your eyes squint. My heart swelled without my permission, and so did my cock, to be honest, because you looked fucking hot. I tried and failed to hide it behind the Snapple bottle.

I blinked a few times to take in the sight of domestic you, sweating over the stove, because it was so weird, so familiar but also not really. It’s been an hour and I still think it’s weird. But hot. Mostly hot. Really, very hot. Oh god.

You made chicken masala. I could tell you were nervous to see if I still liked it because you used to make this for us back in your college apartment, but the empty plates that are resting precariously on top of my coffee table kind of show that I liked it.

We’re lying on the couch listening to the news, and every few minutes, you stroke my cheek with your thumb. It’s embarrassingly electric.

We’re both pretending like we’re watching this instead of thinking about the way your fingers pressed into my skin last night. It’s kind of an intoxicating thought, and I can’t get it out of my head, and I roll so I’m a little bit more on top of you than before. You took off the apron and now you’re in nothing but those very, very tight boxers. Every time I touch your skin my stomach swoops, and I’ve been doing nothing but touching your skin. We don’t really say anything. We’re trying too hard to restrain ourselves. It would be embarrassing if you were anyone else.

I don’t know what I’m doing. My brain isn’t here right now. It’s on vacation. My body is not doing a very good job of holding down the fort either, because right now it’s telling me to get my mouth on you as soon as possible and I’m not fighting, even though my brain would probably be telling me that I should be.

Maybe every time I give you a blow job and swallow everything you give me, the way I did last night, the way I’m probably about to do, maybe I’m swallowing a bitter poison specifically made by you for me, an acid that starts to kill me until your wet kisses neutralize it and save me for the time being. Maybe that’s why I should be fighting.

Because poisonous semen isn’t unheard of, you know? It sounds gross but it’s a real thing. There are flies that have poisonous ejaculations that kill the sperm of other male flies and also kill the female slowly over time, just to ensure the next generation of flies who will grow up to do the same thing. Fucking has been going on since the dawn of existence, anyway. This is just an evolutionary adaptation to the problem of competition.

Maybe the butterflies and swooping in my stomach right now are the effect of that. Your poison getting neutralized until I swallow some more.

Maybe the problem is I’m addicted to both.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

Right now I don’t care either, because I’m running my hand along your bare thigh, back and forth, and I can feel you getting goosebumps, can feel you getting restless under my palm. And I can feel my bloodstream starting to get filled with your intoxicating poison again. I want you, Zayn. Fuck, I want you. Fuck.

I’m thinking of your cock, a few inches from my hand, a few inches from my mouth, and it’s starting to strain beneath your tight boxers. All you can think of right now is my mouth on you, I know, I can tell by the way your hand is holding onto the back of my neck, like you’re already preparing to guide me once I pull you free and get my lips on your cock. The newscast on the television and the traffic on the street blend into white noise as the heater by the window cranks on and shudders to life. We don’t need it; we’re producing enough heat on our own.

Finally I get off the couch and kneel on the floor, looking up at you, my hands still on your thighs, and you struggle to pull off your boxers as fast as you can because you’re just as intoxicated as I am. Your hand pulls my head towards you, and I can see that you’re already harder than I thought, flushed and resting up against your belly, leaking a little onto yourself. I take you with my hand, and I start to trace my tongue along that vein from your base to your tip, and then circle the head the way you like, slowly, agonizing. My cock starts feeling a little strained when I start to play with your balls and see the way you fall back against the back of the couch, groaning, a little breathless when I press into your perineum. You’re watching me with lidded eyes, your stomach tensing as you try to control yourself. I keep my eyes on you as I go down a little further. You can’t help rutting up into my mouth a little.

_If this is what poison tastes like,_ I think, as I start to hum a little around your cock, _maybe it’s not that bad._

I tease you until you’re begging for it. Your beautiful eyes watch me the whole time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a few days since i updated bc i am a lazy human being there is really no other reason i apologize
> 
> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!


	27. Chapter 27

“Why?”

February 17, 2015  
1:25 p.m.

I sigh like an annoyed celebrity. Enough of this. I sit up in my chair.

“Because I like him? And he makes me happy. And I don’t want to be alone.”

“He makes you happy.” She scribbles something short down into her notes.

“How was your week, Meredith?” I ask instead. Because enough of this. I need us to veer off topic for the first time ever in our history of knowing each other. I need that. I hate the one-sidedness of our conversations. “How’s Frank?”

“Excuse me?”

“How are you? What have you been doing? Any new hobbies?”

“Harry, I appreciate your interest, but I don’t really like talking about myself as much in front of my patients. This is your time.”

“Do you paint? You kind of seem like a painter. Is that yours?” I point to a bland water color on the wall behind her. It’s a little bit depressing, but I act like it’s really nice. “It’s really nice.”

She looks surprised. “That’s my daughter’s actually. I taught her myself. She’s incredible, isn’t she?”

“Julia? She’s really good. Is that a…?” I’m going to say vagina.

“Flower,” she smiles. I really like it when Meredith smiles. It makes her look about twenty years younger. Her hair looks smoother, her face looks brighter, her eyes look less clouded and more blue.

“So you do paint then?”

“I do. I started up again this week, actually. I took a break from it for a few months because I lost some inspiration. Is there a reason you’re interested?”

“Did you minor in it in college? Alongside all the sciences?”

“No, I never did,” Meredith tells me, and it’s like we’re having an actual conversation. It’s so nice. The room seems a little lighter. “I thought about it but psychology was more important to me. You majored in English, you told me? On the west coast?”

“English major and business minor, yeah. Washington state. I thought it would look good on resumes, and also my mom made me, but I couldn’t care less about numbers, to be honest. What have you been painting lately?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A little bit of this and a little of that. Faces, mostly. I haven’t done them before.”

“Anyone in particular?”

Meredith, if my eyes don’t deceive me, _blushes._ “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind what?”

“Well. Well, I’ve been doing patients, mostly.”

“Any of me?”

“Some of them are of you.” She blushes harder. Her coke bottle glasses fall a little from the bridge of her nose. “I just find my patients very interesting. I like seeing the way they think. And I know you think I can’t stand you, Harry, but that isn’t true. You’re one of my most interesting patients. And if you don’t mind my saying, you’ve got quite an interesting face to look at.”

“An interesting face?”

“Very soft, very youthful, you know, but then you’ve got these eyes. The peculiar set of your lips. Like a little wise man inside the body of a very young one. You look a little like my husband, actually.”

“Frank?”

“Yes, Frank.” She pauses. “Is there a reason you’re suddenly so interested in my life, Harry? We haven’t talked this much in a while.”

“Just curious, I guess. I figure if we’re going to keep seeing each other like this, I ought to know a little bit more about you. Sorry if I’m kind of asking too much. I’d love to see the paintings, though. Or not. Whatever, you know. I know a lot of artists don’t like showing people their work.”

“You do, do you?”

“Yeah. It’s the same kind of thing with writing. Like, I’ll never show anyone that journal you made me start. Never in a million years. It’s too embarrassing. I used to not even like showing my professors my finished pieces for class, so I know how it goes, I guess. And, Za—Joshua is a painter, too. He keeps all of his paints hidden until I leave, and then I come back and the entire apartment smells like turpentine but he’s already hidden everything away again before I can see it. There’s only a few things of his hanging in the apartment. It’s weird, you know? He painted all the time before he left, and he would occasionally tell me about them, too, but when he left me he left all of his paints. Is that normal?”

“For a painter, you mean? Or just a person?”

“Both.”

“I’d say Joshua was trying to find a new start. It’s normal. Maybe he bought some new paints while he was away. Maybe he was trying to be a new Joshua and not paint at all. Maybe he was like me, maybe he just lost the inspiration. The honeymoon music stopped, if you will. But you come back eventually. I’ve found that I always do. But that’s the thing about people, Harry. You never really know their motives unless you just talk to them. Have you tried asking him?”

“No,” I say. “The apartment smelled like turpentine again yesterday, but I couldn’t find a canvas anywhere. I can never usually find one except the same one he keeps it on the top shelf of the closet. I don’t really go looking for them, but I found that one by accident once when I was putting some stuff away. It’s always there. He never moves it. There’s drawings he does all over the apartment, like pen drawings, he even has a drawer full of fancy pens that he always uses, but I can never find his paintings.”

Meredith frowns. “That’s interesting, Harry. Maybe he throws them out after he’s done, have you thought about that? Or maybe he uses that same canvas over and over again and just paints over it when he’s done. Maybe Joshua doesn’t like the permanence of a finished painting?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell me more about Joshua, Harry. You seem very interested in this habit of his. Have you asked him what he’s been painting? Do you know what he usually likes to paint?”

“No, I don’t. We haven’t talked too much since he came back, anyway. We’ve been occupied by, um, other things. But no, I don’t know.”

“Do you think there’s a reason behind that? The fact that you don’t know about that part of his life, which seems like a pretty big part, do you think that could be a reason for what I’m sensing is deeper communication issues? Maybe the reason you both fell apart a few months ago?” Meredith leans in over the desk like she finally has the big scoop, the thing that’s going on the front pages of every magazine and newspaper in the country first thing tomorrow morning. It makes me hate her a little. “Harry,” she presses. “Don’t you think it’s strange that you’re in such close quarters with someone and you don’t know what they’re painting?”

I struggle not to narrow my eyes. Meredith is a real person, Meredith could just be having a bad day, don’t get mad, don’t get mad. Don’t get mad at Meredith. “Don’t you think it’s strange that I’m in such close quarters with him but he doesn’t know the contents of my journal? No,” I try not to spit. “I don’t think it’s strange. Painting is a personal thing for Zayn. It’s not really my business to ask about it. What he shares with me, I’ll take. I won’t take anything more.”

“You seem a little protective of him.”

“Maybe that’s because I am.”

She sighs and looks at the clock. Her forward lean slowly slides back into her usual sitting position. “Our time’s up, Harry. But I’ll remember the paintings for next week. The ones of you. You ought to see what I’ve been doing. Sometimes it’s better to just open ourselves up and show people what’s inside.”

Ah, subtle. “Do you have any anesthetic for my rabbit legs when you open me up on that examination table?” I ask.

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind. I’ll see you next week, Meredith.”

“This was a good session, Harry. I like talking to you. Remember this next week.”

“Okay, yeah. I will.”

When I leave her office, for the first time in all of the times I’ve come here, I don’t feel a wave of disappointment pushing down on my shoulders. I leave feeling lighter than I have in months.

I can’t help my creepy little smile of satisfaction as I go down the elevator to the street.

Anyone watching would think I’d just killed someone.

Maybe I have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!
> 
> dear lord i am truly sick of writing that after every chapter oh my god


	28. Chapter 28

_**Zayn** _

I saw you put my name back in your phone as Zayn again. Three half smile emojis and all.

February 20, 2015  
5:20 p.m.

The neighbors downstairs are nice. The new ones who play cartoons all the time, who don’t bang brooms on their ceiling to get us to quiet down.

They knocked on our door this morning under the guise of “meeting the new neighbors!” but it was definitely because we were a little bit very loud the night before and they were probably checking to make sure one of us hadn’t killed the other. Which was nice, I guess. You never really know what you’re hearing through the floorboards.

We stifled our laughter when we opened the door to two bright eyed and smiling people wearing pastel. You gave me a glance as you hid behind me in your underwear, even though it was incredibly ineffective because you’re a good few inches taller and bigger than I am so I’m pretty sure they saw everything. I was the only one of us who had the courtesy of putting on a tee shirt. It was yours.

They gifted us with homemade porridge, which you took graciously as you said about a million thank you’s. I didn’t think people still made porridge. And then they introduced themselves as Leigh and Nick and they asked us to dinner, which is what we’re getting ready for right now, but not really. We’re just slowly making out on the couch, shoes discarded by the door. We’re meeting them in an hour.

I had been on my way to politely say to no to their invitation when you suddenly said yes.

I wonder if we should bring a porridge.

I ask you that now. You sigh and rest your head back on the arm of the couch. I’m laying on top of you, our noses so close they’re almost touching. I steal a kiss from the corner of your lip, because I can.

“I don’t know how to make porridge,” you say, stealing one back from the line of my jaw. “We can bring wine, I guess? Are we officially at that age of adult that qualifies bringing wine to dinner parties?”

“Are we officially the age that goes to dinner parties?”

You laugh, but not completely. “Fuck. We’re old, Zayn. Help, I’m getting osteoporosis.”

“I used to tell my sisters I’d never get older than seventeen.”

“Zayn, Zayn, I think my back is going. Could you check my hairline? Is it receding at all? God, I need to call my chiropractor.” You snort at your own joke, something you always used to do, and it makes my heart jump. “At least you’ll always be seventeen in your head. Young and sweet. Also a dancing queen.”

“Just my side job.”

“Pays the rent, right?”

“Of course.”

“It’s weird.”

“What?”

“Getting old,” you say. You run your hands along the bumps of the side of my ribcage, fingers fluttering my shirt. “It’s weird. I always think of myself as nineteen.”

 _I fell in love with you at nineteen,_ I think. I press my lips to your forehead. I feel you close your eyes.

“Yeah, that’s weird,” I agree.

“Does it have to be wine? Can we bring vodka instead? I have a new bottle.”

“As a joke?” I ask, even though I know you’re not entirely joking. You pause.

“Um, yeah.”

“Harry,” I say, laughing a little because I suddenly can’t get rid of that guilty little thought that you’re just retracing the footprints that we’ve already pressed down into the carpet. Not because you think it’s going to lead you anywhere new but because it’s just familiar. Laughing makes it hurt less. “Harry, they’re going to think we’re alcoholics.”

“Maybe we can bring brownies, too. They have a young kid, right? Even though they’re fucking _our_ age. They’re kids with kids. How fucked up is that?”

“I can make them now, if you want. The brownies,” I say. I’m still doing penance in my head. Which isn’t good, I know unpacking this backpack will be slow if I keep doing this, but in my head I’m still on probation.

“We sound so fucking domestic, Zayn.”

“I know.” I laugh a little again.

“Thank you for cleaning the dishes last night, by the way. And for doing the laundry. That was nice, Zayn.”

I smile big for your benefit, like a proud kid getting praise.

“Do you want a gold star?”

“Yes, please.”

You go to say something deadpan just then, but you hold it back. I see the way your lips change it into a laugh.

My backpack gains another five pounds of solid brick because that’s the one part about you that’s changed and hasn’t changed back. You’re not a closed book anymore, but you’re not really an open book either. You’re a book that wants to keep closing itself but is forcing itself to stay open.

I know that’s my fault.

“Leave at seven?” you ask.

“Okay.”

“My mom says hi, by the way.”

“You told her I moved back in?” My stomach swoops uncomfortably.

“She isn’t very happy. She expected it though.”

“Um, well, tell Anne I say hello back. And I’m sorry, for, you know, being terrible.”

“You don’t have to tell her that.”

“I know.”

“Gemma also says hello. And she misses your sisters.”

“I’ll let them know.”

And then we kind of peter off, our conversation coming to an end, because neither of us know what else to say. It’s like we’ve forgotten how to do this because recently we’ve been only speaking in bodies. Which sounds like a terrible lyric from a song — it might be, I don’t fucking know where I get half the things I write down — but it’s true. And easier, I think. So that’s why we do it. Maybe. I don’t know.

After a few minutes of quiet, you wiggle until I get the point, and you slip out from under me to get changed.

“Are you getting dressed?” you ask, eyeing the bland button down I wore to my interview in midtown today.

“I’ll just stay like this, I think. It goes with Leigh and Nick’s pastel aesthetic.”

You laugh. The door to the bedroom closes with an accidental slam behind you.

I compose myself in the hour it takes the brownies to bake. _Forget about probation, forget about penance, Zayn._ I’m close to smacking my head just to knock that thought into place. _You’re not a criminal and you’re not a Catholic. Be the person with the three half smile emojis by their name in Harry’s phone. Be him. That’s who you should be,_ I think. _That’s who you were._

The brownies come out a little burnt on the edges.

I nearly want to throw them out the window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!
> 
> i think theres going to only be a few more chapters btw...i kind of have the ending in my head. EXCEPT if theres an ending you really feel strongly about happening then tell me lol bc tbh this fic isn't set in stone. literally i post a chapter about ten minutes after i write it, so yeah! tell me ur thoughts on da ending and it might change to that. 
> 
> ok. yes. bye. B)


	29. Chapter 29

_**Zayn** _

“You two seem really in love.”

February 20, 2015  
8:30 p.m.

She fucking said that! Does it exude from our pores like glistening sweat?

Is it obvious? Which one of us did she see it on?

What does it look like?

Leigh smiles as us from across their little kitchen table. Their apartment is exactly the same as ours and it’s fucking weird, like we stepped into an alternate universe. Like one of those pick your own story books and we’ve flipped forward to the chapter where we end up staying together in that apartment, where we end up getting married, where we end up growing old.

It’s like we’re looking through a telescope to our maybe future. You look visibly uncomfortable.

Because this could be us, you know? This could be the path we’re leading ourselves down if we stay away from the monsters.

They’ve got happy family photos lining the walls and varying shades of cream and beige everywhere, a giant beige blob of neutrality and bland happiness. They look so happy sitting across from us. It’s terrifying.

Because is it really happiness if there’s no color? If you live in an apartment of neutrality? Is that what they want or is this just what both of them don’t mind having?

Is there even a difference? Fuck. Does it even matter?

It’s sweet, though. They look happy.

They’ve got country playing on their wireless speakers, white people shit that I can’t stand. You’ve been suppressing your smirk because you know I’m in actual pain.

Their entire apartment smells like apple pie and cinnamon. I’m not sure if that’s because of what they’re cooking or if it just comes with them. Maybe it’s sewn into the beige carpets that we had to take our shoes off to walk on.

I feel bad for their kid.

Their little daughter Lux is in the other room, watching the cartoons that we can always hear through the floor.

We met her when we came in. She was ecstatic about the brownies and stole about six before running back to her room. You fell in love with her, Harry. I could see it in your eyes. How big they got, how soft. You wanted to steal her away, I think.

Nick’s collared shirt is tucked into his khakis and Leigh’s dress is modest and fluttery, the kind of fabric that nearly shouts Presentable Mom on the Go. They sit with straighter backs than we have.

I look at you sitting next to me and see you’re in such a deep slouch that your shoulders are almost hitting your plate. I want to kiss you and pull your back straight at the same time. If love glistens like sweat, then my forehead must be dripping.

We don’t know how to respond to her. When she says that neither of us know what to say, so neither of us really say anything. I just give her a nod of acknowledgment and you just give a dry thank you after you clear your throat.

_Thank you. We really do seem like we’re in love._ That’s what you’re saying. You’re not saying, yes, yes we really are.

I struggle drinking the rest of my wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update i had 2 exams this week!
> 
> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne B)


	30. Chapter 30

_**Zayn** _

I’ve been thinking about it, Harry. You’re asleep in the other room.

February 22, 2014  
4:01 a.m.

We’re like this big tornado. I might be saying that because I was watching the nature channel all night but I think that’s what we are. Caught up in each other, spitting each other out and then getting sucked back in again, tearing apart little Oklahoma towns in our wake. We go so fast and travel so far but we don’t even notice because we’re spinning, turning in dizzying circles too high up off the ground to see how much space we’ve covered, how far we’ve gone.

And I don’t know when we’re finally going to get spun too far out from our storm and fall.

Or when, by some stroke of luck, we hit our head like Dorothy and end up in Oz. But I don’t know how to get to Oz, Harry. I’m lost and I don't have any magic slippers.

The ground looks really soft from here, I think. I love you but the ground looks really soft, and I know you're tired.

If I only had a fucking brain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblrs are donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne!
> 
> FINALLY SAFARI DOESNT AUTOCORRECT DONECHAPEL TO DENOTABLE let this be known it takes roughly 29 times for you to type a word a certain way before autocorrect eventually gives up trying to help you


	31. Chapter 31

Life goes in cycles. And I think I’m back at the start.

March 19, 2015  
11:20 p.m.

We’ve been moving fine, I think, the past twenty three days. Sailing, wind behind us, not flapping the sails. It’s been nearly a month. Like, I don’t want to be vague about it. It’s been exactly twenty three days since I’ve written an entry. And it’s kind of because all of whatever was keeping me going—angst, probably, over you—just suddenly disappeared. We were fine, all of a sudden. Smooth sailing. Storm gone in a beautiful blink. The black hole that was opening up beneath me just closed. And it got quiet again. 

And we didn’t leave the apartment and every day bled into the next and there was nothing to say other than, “This is good. This is fine. This is okay.” Meredith eventually stopped taking notes. Life went on steadily, each day thudding forward until things stopped becoming important.

We even had small talk.

And then stress happened, slowly. Creeping up on me until it finally jumped forward last night and covered my eyes and threw me over the edge. And then job happened. And then look at that, Zayn! The second I get a letter from my editor saying they want me to move to Chicago for a promotion, I’m suddenly writing in this again.

Which is good timing. You’re getting twitchy, anyway. I can tell. 

I have rabbit legs too, Zayn.

I’m sitting here right now and waiting for you to get back from another interview, something you didn’t tell me about because it’s just another in a line of beige settling jobs, nothing you really want, and I’m looking around right now because. Because of something but I don’t fucking know.

I’m getting over strep throat right now so my thoughts aren’t working.

Of course I get everything all at once. Strep throat, a cough, two ear infections, and conjunctivitis in both eyes. 

You took care of me, so thank you. You made me honey and lemon tea and laughed when you saw how my eyes were literally oozing yellow goo. You hugged me and put me in bed and reminded me to take my antibiotics. You got me pizza from the place that doesn’t sell duck and fig pizza anymore and a bunch of yogurt because apparently I need that.

You were so good that I felt the words I love you trying to rise up out of me like someone was pulling them up on a string. 

And right now I’m just sitting here like an immobile lump, stressed and oozing yellow goo, sniffling into a tissue, trying to be coherent and trying to figure out my fucking head.

It feels like this is right. That’s what it feels like inside my mucusy head. Like it's how it was and like it's right.

But remade, I guess. You know like how whenever you recall a memory your mind is actually creating the memory from scratch every time and everything is just a little bit different from how it actually was the first time, which is why they can’t really trust witness accounts in court anymore. 

Or like it’s day two of filming and the continuity department tried really hard to make everything exactly the same but failed, kind of. Mostly how it was, but just enough off that you sense a difference, a shift. Different shirts hanging off the back of chairs. Different papers piled on the kitchen table. No shoes by the door.

Maybe that’s just me, though. A few days ago there was this stand on the street that was talking about Gratitude Day and how you ought to write your loved ones letters of gratitude and the guy holding the sign was just like, “Do you know what’s crazy? There is no world but 7.3 billion interpretations of it. Everything is subjective.”

And I’m not sure how that’s related to Gratitude Day but it got me thinking that maybe this weirdness about us is just me. Maybe you’re not thinking this.

You’ve started hanging your paintings again. There’s a gray and yellow and brown one above the television next to a black and purple and magenta self portrait. All of it is splattered, not detailed and precise like you used to do, instead just kind of frantic and thick and heavy like the stuff you tell me Danny does. The graffiti. 

Sometimes you come back with blots of color on the sleeves of your shirts.

Danny comes around here sometimes, too.

Just twice, actually. About once a week. I wonder why. I think he’s watching me. Or keeping check, or something, or maybe just watching out for you. Wondering how you’re doing.

I don’t ask you enough. I don’t ask you that. How are you doing, Zayn? How are you? 

Are you good? 

Are you fine? 

Are you okay?

We kind of just wash everything down the sink and let the disposer dispose of it. Lick it down and swallow it like each other’s saliva as we tongue into each other’s mouths and forget the taste, just keep having sex in the dark. We do that a lot.

Put us together and lock the door and it will probably happen in eight minutes. Because you’re intoxicating and shit like that.

It also smells different in here. Well, it would smell different if I could smell but right now I can still barely breathe and my throat still cuts with every swallow. 

But it still smells different in here. Not bad, but not like that apple cinnamon of Leigh and Nick’s place. It always smells like that there, you know? No matter what they cook. And you have to wonder if it’s a secret candle somewhere or if it’s just them. And it’s just as strong, too, every time I visit you while you’re babysitting their little kid. 

Our apartment doesn’t smell like that. For some reason when you clash us together you don’t create that home smell. You get cologne, and musk, and turpentine and that nice paper that I sometimes buy, and that curry that you’re good at making, and the cigarettes that you smoke and the weed that Danny sometimes brings, and occasionally right before laundry day wet socks, but there’s no magic to it. We just smell like all of those things. They don’t mix and meld and glisten and combine to make that inexplicable homey and comfortable smell of apple and cinnamon.

We don’t have that.

I sit here for about three more hours until you come back.

Not home. Just back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: harry is me. i currently have strep throat and a cough and two ear infections and conjunctivitis in both eyes and i am currently oozing yellow goo and can barely see and cannot smell and have had two severe nosebleeds in the past twenty four hours. which means i am dying.
> 
> but free time! it has also given me that. and so this wild chapter has appeared.
> 
> im on tumblr at donechapel and getyouwhateverthepayne
> 
> p.s. conjunctivitis is pink eye. i look like a fucking monster.


End file.
